


Blue Moon

by Idday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Endgame Sterek, Eventual Romance, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by a Movie, Minor Side Relationships, Multi, Romantic Comedy, When Harry Met Sally AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:03:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idday/pseuds/Idday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, they hate each other (Stiles is the guy that thinks that people of 'compatible sexualities' can't be friends, whatever that means. Derek thinks he's full of shit, and tells him so. With his eyebrows). </p><p>The second time they meet, Stiles doesn't even remember him (or so Derek thinks).</p><p>The third time they meet... the third time, they become friends.</p><p>OR</p><p>The When Harry Met Sally AU that nobody asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Moon

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I was on a plane watching this movie with Sterek on the brain (as it always is) and I was like 'what if...' And this monster was born.
> 
> General forewarning that this is a pretty faithful scene by scene adaptation of the movie, so hopefully it doesn't get too old. If you've seen the movie, you'll recognize a lot. If not, you should re-evaluate some things and then go watch it.
> 
> DEFINITELY fluffier than my usual stuff, a total AU... also be aware that all minor characters are SUPER minor and are also out of character. I just wanted to use them to really link these two worlds together, instead of creating totally new characters. Also, this is unbetaed, and though I have read it over about twenty times myself, I'm sure there are still mistakes. Sorry... although if there are any huge typos, feel free to let me know! 
> 
> Please let me know if I should tag anything else, but there's nothing trigger-y, I don't think. Let me know if I do need to add something.
> 
> Disclaimer--I do not own/have anything to do with Teen Wolf or When Harry Met Sally and am definitely not making any money...
> 
> Title was apparently an option for the film (according to IMDB), and was too perfect to resist. 
> 
> Please enjoy, and I love comments more than life itself!

_“I was sitting with my friend Arthur Kornblum in a restaurant. It was a Horn & Hardart Cafeteria, and this beautiful girl walked in, and I turned to Arthur and I said, ‘Arthur, you see that girl? I’m going to marry her.’ And two weeks later we were married. And it’s over fifty years later, and we’re still married.”_

 …

When Derek pulls up to the curb, Heather is kissing the guy.

No, kissing isn’t really the proper way to describe it. It’s hot-and-heavy, clothes-tearing, take-me-here-and-now _making out._

Fucking perfect.

He clears his throat.

The couple pulls apart, and Heather gushes, “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” the guy coos, and then they start going at it again.

Derek clears his throat louder, and this time, they actually let go of each other and look around, confused, like they forgot that they were in the middle of the road, or that Derek was supposed to be picking this guy up to drive back to California.

“Oh, hey, Derek,” Heather says, and then smooths her blonde hair back behind her ear where it had been tangled up, presumably from this guy running his hands through it while he was doing his very best to suck her tongue out of her mouth.

“Stiles,” she says, “This is Derek Hale.” She waves a hand over at him. Derek, like he has every time before now that Heather has talked about this guy—which, granted, hasn’t been much, because he’s a fairly new flame for her—feels his eyebrows creep up his forehead. _Stiles?_

“Derek,” she says, now dimpling and looping her arm through _Stiles’,_ “This is Stiles Stilinski.”

Oh, Jesus.

“Hey,” Stiles says, grinning and raising a hand. His hair is standing on end from Heather’s ministrations, and his lips are a shade of red that Derek suspects is only obtained when someone else has been licking them for a few hours.

Derek nods, and then says, “You wanna start out driving?”

“Nah,” Stiles says, “You can. You’re already there.”

He hefts a duffle bag onto his shoulder. Derek pops the trunk.

Stiles throws his bag in the trunk and then _slams_ it down, making the whole car lurch forward. Derek grits his teeth. He hears more ominous smacking sounds, and a glance in his side mirror confirms that Stiles has reattached his lips to Heather’s.

Derek leans on the horn, and enjoys the thudding sound that Stiles makes when he jumps, loses his footing, and catches himself on the closed trunk.

Though he could do without Stiles’ grubby fingers all over his paint job.

“Sorry,” he calls, grinning falsely.

“I love you,” Heather says, turning back to run her fingers through Stiles’ hair.

“I love you,” Stiles says. He bops her on the nose. Yes. Actually.

“Call me!”

“As soon as I get there,” Stiles promises, and _winks._

“Text me from the road!”

Derek glares into the rearview mirror, and sees Stiles grin when he says, “I’ll text you before then,” and leans in for another kiss, this one mercifully short.

Stiles throws the passenger door open and falls into the seat, pulling the door shut behind him with a bang. Derek winces.

“I miss you already!” Stiles calls out the open window.

…

They haven’t even left Chicago yet when Derek Hale says, “So it’s a thirty hour trip, which breaks down into ten separate three hour shifts.”

Stiles unbuckles his seatbelt and kneels backwards to reach into the back seat, where he’s stashed all of his road-trip goodies. When he turns around, clutching a bag of Doritos, Derek looks personally affronted. Maybe he hates fake cheese. Or maybe he didn’t appreciate the way that Stiles wiggled his ass in Derek’s face, just for fun.

“Or,” Derek continues, still giving him a dirty glare, “We could break it down by mileage.”

Stiles opens his bag of chips.

“There’s a map in the glovebox, I’ve marked where we could change shifts,” Derek says over the crinkling of his plastic bag. Like maybe both of them had just _forgotten_ that their smart phones have GPS, or something?

“Dorito?” Stiles offers brightly, so that he doesn’t say something snarky enough to Derek about people who _still use maps_ to get kicked out of the car before he gets himself out of Illinois.

Derek throws him a glance. Well, whatever, Stiles is a college student, at least until they hit San Francisco. He doesn’t have to eat like an adult until then. Derek is the weird one. What kind of respectable, broke college student drives a _Camaro_? Stiles is too broke to have even managed paying for gas in the city, which is why his jeep is still at home.

“No, thank you,” he says stiffly. “I don’t really like junk food.”

Which is exactly _no_ amount of surprising, with a physique like that.

Stiles draws his hand out of the bag and licks the orange dust off his fingers, which, surprise, earns him another glare from Derek. But whatever, everybody knows the cheese dust is the best part.

“I’ll grab a napkin,” Stiles says, because this is going to be a long car trip, and he doesn’t want this Derek Hale guy to leave him stranded in Nebraska, or something, just because Stiles couldn’t compromise.

They drive in silence for a while. Derek keeps his eyes on the road, and Stiles keeps his mind on his Doritos.

But he’s Stiles Stilinski, the kid that all his Middle School peers had dubbed _The Great Mouth,_ so he can’t go too long before he says, “So, why don’t you tell me the story of your life?”

Derek waits thirty seconds and makes a left turn before he says, “The story of my life?”

“Sure,” Stiles says easily. “You know. The story. Of your life.”

“Not much to tell,” Derek says, and then, maybe because he can tell that Stiles won’t give up until he gets what he wants, says, “Grew up in New York. Moved to Chicago for school."

Which is the worst story that Stiles has ever heard. There weren’t even any _people_ in it.

“So nothing has ever happened in your whole life,” says Stiles flatly, “Except you attending college.”

“Things are _about_ to happen,” Derek says, “That’s why I’m moving to San Francisco.”

“To do what.”

“To write,” Derek says, “for San Francisco Magazine.”

Oh, he’s going to be a writer. Yes. That makes sense. Because he’s clearly so fond of using his words.

“So you won’t even tell me your own story,” Stiles says, “But you’re going to spend your life writing other people’s?”

Which earns Stiles another glare. He’s sensing a theme here.

They drive for another forty minutes and Stiles tries to engage Derek in conversation for exactly twelve of them before giving up and flipping on the radio. Taylor Swift is singing about roses or a princess or something when Derek actually opens his mouth and says, “Heather told me how much you talked.”

“Sure,” Stiles says easily, because ‘chatty’ is pretty much his main character trait, “I’m a wonderful conversationalist. That’s what drew her to me.”

Stiles doesn’t know if Derek’s trying to emphasize how much he doesn’t need words to communicate, or if he’s just extremely skeptical, but he raises one eyebrow instead of saying anything. Well, Stiles assumes he only raises one. He’s not sure, because he can only see Derek’s right eyebrow, but Derek seems like the sort of person who would not only know how to raise one eyebrow, but would also do it. Frequently.

“What,” Stiles says, “Just because you _never_ talk?”

“I talk.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “But you talk like, once an hour. One time, I had laryngitis, so I couldn’t talk for two days. My dad got me this little whiteboard to write on, so I could ask for stuff or whatever? I went through _three_ whiteboard markers in two days writing all this stuff that I just _had_ to say. That’s talkative.”

Derek scoffs. “That doesn’t mean that you have anything to _say_. Besides, I am fully capable of communicating my needs and desires.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, “So am I.”

“I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with not feeling the need to fill the silence with inane babble.”

“Of course not,” Stiles says, “That would mean that you were concerned that you might make the other people around you feel awkward. Which clearly, you aren’t."

Derek glares out the front window.

Stiles crunches his chip bag as loud as he possibly can.

…

They’ve driven six hours and into Iowa when Stiles pulls into a restaurant for dinner.

“He _wanted_ her to get on the plane,” Stiles says.

Because, try as he might, Derek had not been able to hold off the absolute _barrage_ of information Stiles had bombarded him with all the way through Illinois without offering up some defensive words of his own. Like the fact that his older sister, Laura, had a major weakness for old movies. Which Stiles had dragged out of him while talking about how his mother, who had died when Stiles was a child, had always watched old black and white movies with him when Stiles was sick.

Which is why they are now having an argument about _Casablanca._

“She wanted to go,” Derek says.

“ _Why_ would she have wanted to go?”

“I don’t think that I would have wanted to stay in Casablanca with a bartender,” Derek says.

“So you’d rather leave the man with whom you’d had the best sex of your life.”

“To be the first lady of Czechoslovakia?” Derek raises a shoulder. “Any practical person would have made the same decision.”

Stiles yanks the keys out of the ignition. “You would think so, you snob with a Camaro,” Stiles says. He’s also made it abundantly clear over the past few hours how objectionable he finds Derek’s car, even after Derek had told him that it was a graduation gift, and also a hand-me-down from Laura, who had expensive tastes but an even more lucrative job, and had recently bought herself a car a step up from the Camaro.

Speaking of which… “Be gentle with it!” Derek snaps, as Stiles slams the driver’s door shut.

Stiles ignores him, and fixes him with a steady look. “I feel so sorry for you,” Stiles says, his eyes huge and golden.

“Why.”

“Because,” he says, throwing Derek the keys and pushing the door to the diner open, “Obviously you haven’t had great sex yet.” Which means, Derek presumes, that Stiles thinks that only someone who hasn’t had good sex would manage to be practical enough to go to Czechoslovakia.

Stiles grins at the hostess, who motions them lazily to a table by the window overlooking the parking lot.

“I’ve had plenty of good sex,” Derek says loudly to Stiles’ back, and every head in the place snaps to him.

He straightens his shoulders, and slides into the booth across from Stiles, ignoring the funny looks.

“With who,” Stiles says casually, after Derek’s slipped off his leather jacket and placed it, folded carefully, on the bench seat next to him.

“What?” Derek says.

“With who,” Stiles says, enunciating obnoxiously clearly, “Did you have this great sex?”

Derek flips open his menu loftily. “That is none of your business.”

“Fine,” Stiles says, lifting and then dropping his shoulders, perusing his menu, looking smug.

Nobody, not ever, has infuriated Derek like this. Except maybe Laura.

“Shel Gordon,” he grits out, flipping over to look at the salads.

And then looks up, when Stiles snorts.

“Shel, as in Sheldon?” Stiles asks, and then actually laughs out loud. “Sorry. But you did not have great sex with…” he takes a breath, raises his eyebrows, and then says heavily, “Sheldon.”

Which is completely untrue. Because, yes, Shel had been Derek’s first boyfriend, and yes, there was a fair bit of experimental and fumbling sex, but they had, _eventually,_ had good sex.

Some of this must show on his face, because Stiles slaps his menu shut, leans forward, and says, “A Sheldon can do your income taxes. If you need a root canal, Sheldon’s your man. But humpin’ and pumpin’ is not Sheldon’s strong suit.”

Derek feels himself flush. There’s no way Stiles could have known that Shel had been an accounting major. That’s just a lucky guess.

“It’s the name!” Stiles continues, either unaware or uncaring of Derek’s discomfort, “‘Do it to me, Sheldon! You’re an animal, Sheldon! Ride me, big… _Sheldon.’_ ” He shrugs again, carelessly. “It doesn’t work.”

And then a waitress comes over, and Stiles orders a number three, and Derek orders a salad, dressing on the side, and the apple pie à la mode (pie heated, ice cream on the side, strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla, or if they don’t have that, whipped cream, but only real, not from a can, and if they don’t have that, then nothing, except yes, he still wants the pie, but then not heated), and coffee, black and hot.

And _then_ Derek looks back at Stiles, ready to deliver his blistering rebuttal about Shel’s prowress in bed, only to find that Stiles is looking at him like he’s sprouted fangs, or something.

“What?” He asks.

“Nothing,” says Stiles. But he says it in the way that means he doesn’t mean nothing, in the way that means he means _something._

Then they sit in silence for a while. Maybe Stiles ran out of things to talk about, which Derek doubts, but it would be a blessing. Even though he, Derek, hadn’t said much since leaving school, he’d somehow learned _Stiles’_ whole life story, beginning with him being born and raised in a small California town with his father and mother, before his mother had died. He’d heard all about Stiles’ youthful shenanigans with a boy named Scott, who he grew up with and did everything with and who he once convinced for a whole week that Scott was going to turn into a werewolf after being bit by a stray dog in the woods during one of their strange midnight rambles (and Scott’s moving to San Francisco, too, for a job at a vet’s office there, and Stiles _could not be more excited_ ). He’d heard all about how Stiles had selected the University of Chicago, and how he’ll be going to law school in San Francisco. And then, just when Derek thought that maybe he could have ten minutes of silence, Stiles had asked him if he had seen  _Casablanca._

But then Stiles says, “So, why’d you break up with Sheldon?”

“How do you know we broke up?” Derek asks. But then he decides that he’d rather just get this over with and not have Stiles looking so smugly anymore, so he says, “He was jealous, and I had my grandmother’s ring.”

And then, because he can just _feel_ the derision rolling off of Stiles (and because he wants to avoid the inappropriate comments he can already feel coming), adds quickly, “She left it to me in her will. It was the ring that my Grandpa proposed with, she wore it over when they immigrated. I used to wear it on a chain around my neck.”

“I would have broken up with you, too,” Stiles says wryly.

Derek glares at him. “ _Anyway,_ ” he says, “One day I wasn’t wearing it anymore, and it was all suspicious. Had I left it at another guy’s place, or a girl’s place, had I _proposed_ to someone else, and when I told him the truth, he didn’t believe me.”

“What’s the truth?”

“I gave it to my sister,” Derek says.

“You proposed to your sister?” Stiles asks.

“No! I gave it to her, because she bet me that I wouldn’t. Never mind. It’s a long story. You wouldn’t get it, anyway.” Derek sighs, and adds, “You don’t know Laura.”

And thank God the waitress comes back then, because Stiles is looking like he has _several_ things that he would like to say, and Derek doesn’t particularly want to hear any of them. So instead, he eats his salad, dressing on the side, his pie, ice cream on the side, and his coffee, black and hot. And then works on dividing the bill, and trying to take 20% of an odd number without using his phone calculator, because he is _not_ one of those people.

When he finally calculates his total and throws a $20 on the table, he looks up to find Stiles staring at him. Again. This time, it’s a little less ‘I think you’re batshit crazy’ and a little more ‘I want to rip your clothes off with my teeth,’ but it makes him equally suspicious.

“What,” he says, “Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Stiles says. He keeps staring at Derek.

“What?”

“You’re very attractive,” Stiles says. _What?_ “Oh,” Stiles continues pleasantly, “Was I mistaken, was that not what the whole ‘Sheldon’ debacle implied? You’re bi, I’m bi. What’s the big deal? It’s just that Heather never said you were so attractive.”

“Well,” Derek says stiffly, reaching for his leather jacket and putting it back on, “She probably doesn’t think that I am attractive.”

“It’s not really a matter of opinion. Objectively, you are attractive.” Stiles throws some cash of his own on the table, and Derek is glad for it, because it means that he gets to stomp towards the door without feeling guilty about leaving Stiles behind.

“You’re dating Heather,” he hisses, when Stiles catches him at the door, and then, when Stiles continues to look blandly amused, says, “So why are you hitting on me?”

“I’m not!” Stiles claims, which is just preposterous. “Can’t I say that someone is attractive without it being a come on?”

Derek glares at him.

“Fine!” Stiles says, raising both hands up in surrender. “I take it back.”

“You can’t take it back,” Derek says. “It’s already out there.”

Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Stiles,” Derek says firmly, unlocking the driver’s side door and sliding in. And closing it behind him. Gently. “We are just going to be friends.”

“Great,” Stiles says. “I love friends.”

…

“You know,” Stiles says, an hour later, because he is incapable of letting anything go, “We could never be friends.”

“Why not,” Derek snarls from the driver’s seat. He’s been in a tremendously bad mood since they left the diner. Stiles can’t for the life of him figure out why.

“Because,” Stiles says, “And _don’t_ think that I’m hitting on you, because I’m not, but it’s just that people of… compatible sexualities… can’t be friends.”

“What the fuck is ‘compatible sexualities,’” Derek says. It should be a question, but it’s not. It’s spoken in a complete monotone, which is actually very interesting, because Stiles did not know that a human could sound so much like a robot before tonight.

“Yeah. It’s like the whole idea that men and women can’t be friends, but it’s more complicated than that, because that’s, like, super heteronormative.” Stiles nods sagely, like he actually has a very firm grasp on what that means, rather than just an inkling from hearing it in passing every day from everyone else at school who had constantly talked about things like ‘social constructs.’ “So what I’m saying is, you and me could never be friends. Because we’re both attracted to males, and we’re both attractive males.”

“But with that logic, you can’t be friends with anybody,” Derek protests.

Stiles shrugs. “Compatible sexualities, man. You can’t really be friends."

“That’s not true. I have plenty of friends, of _all_ genders, and there is no sex involved.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t!”

“What, I’m having sex with all these people without my knowledge?” Derek says, exasperated.

“No, but they want to have sex with you.”

“They do not.”

“If they would ordinarily be attracted to a man, then they want to have sex with you. You’re attractive. You can’t be friends with someone that you find attractive.”

“Stiles, that is not true.” Derek broods at the road for a while, and then says, “Well, what if only one party in the relationship wants to have this hypothetical sex?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Stiles says, “The sex thing is already out there. Friendship doomed. Game over.”

“Well.” Derek says, “I guess we won’t be friends.”

Stiles nods sadly in agreement.

“It’s too bad.” Derek’s voice is light, but his face is heavy in the glow from the passing streetlights. “You were the only person that I knew in San Francisco.”

…

Derek drops Stiles off outside of Scott’s apartment building, and reluctantly gets out of the car to say goodbye. It’s only polite, he supposes.

“Thanks for the ride,” Stiles says, throwing his duffle bag over his shoulder and squinting into the sun.

“Sure,” Derek says. He doesn’t know what else to say. He hates small talk.

“It was nice knowing you,” Stiles says.

“Yeah,” Derek agrees, even though he hasn’t decided yet whether or not it _was_ nice to meet Stiles.

Stiles sticks a hand out for Derek to take, and they both shake.

Then Stiles waves and strides off, and Derek climbs back into his car, and starts the engine.

And almost brains himself on the low ceiling when he jumps, because someone is knocking on his window.

It’s Stiles.

“Have a nice life!” He calls through the glass.

Derek bares his teeth.

…

_“We fell in love in high school.”_

_“Yeah, we were… we were high school sweethearts.”_

_“But then after our junior year, his parents moved away.”_

_“But I never forgot her.”_

_“He never forgot me.”_

_“No. Her face was burned on my brain. And it was thirty-four years later that I was walking down Broadway, and I saw her come out of Toffenetti’s.”_

_“And we both looked at each other, and it was just as though not a single day had gone by.”_

_“She was just as beautiful as she was at sixteen.”_

_“He was just the same. He looked exactly the same!”_

_…_

FIVE YEARS LATER

…

Stiles is five minutes later than he should be to the airport, so of course he’s stuck at the end of the longest security line he’s ever seen.

Also, there’s a couple making out _right_ in front of him, which is fun.

A young, attractive, dark-haired couple, who, from what Stiles can see of the sides of their faces, actually look a little familiar.

The man opens his eyes, and sees Stiles staring at them. Stiles doesn’t look away. The man nudges his girlfriend, and jerks his head sideways, until she meets his eyes, too.

Holy. Shit. That’s Derek Hale.

And he’s here with… “Jennifer?” Stiles says, and then is glad he went with that, and not Jessica (which was his first guess), when she smiles and says, “Stiles, hi!”

“I thought that was you!” Stiles says, “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Fine, it’s going just fine!” Jennifer enthuses. Derek’s staring at him, looking put out.

It’s nice to know that some things never change.

“How’s the world of the paralegal?” Stiles asks, because he is excellent at nothing if he’s not excellent at small talk, “Still with the D.A.’s office?”

“Yep!” Jennifer says perkily, “How’re things with you?”

“Oh, great. Working for a small firm now, things are just great.”

“Oh!” Jennifer says, after a minute of awkward laughter, “This is Derek Hale! Derek, Stiles Stilinski.”

They nod at each other politely. Derek eyes him, and Stiles tries to pretend like he doesn’t sometimes think of Derek’s bizarre pie order out of the blue sometimes, even five years later, and burst out laughing. Also, he thinks that Derek may actually have gotten hotter, which defies all the laws of nature.

He wonders if he still drives that Camaro.

“We used to work together, back before Stiles sold out!” Jennifer laughs again. “Well, anyway, I’m just dropping him off,” Jennifer says breezily, “I really should be going! It was so nice to see you, Stiles.” She turns to give Derek another kiss that’s just a touch too inappropriate for a public place, and then ducks under the line dividers and disappears.

Derek turns his back on Stiles and slides his phone out of his pocket.

So does Stiles, but it’s only because he feels awkward reading over Derek’s shoulder without something in his hands.

 _I know that guy,_ Derek writes in a new text message to ‘Jen’ with a little heart emoji after her name (Ew). _I drove from Chicago to San Fran with him five years ago, right after college. It was the longest night of my life._

It’s nice to know that Derek is as expressionless via text as he is via speech.

 _What happened?_ ‘Jen’ replies immediately. She puts a little smiley face at the end of her message. Stiles hates her.

 _He hit on me,_ Derek types back, _And then when I said no, he said that people of ‘compatible sexualities’ could never be friends. Whatever that means. He was dating a friend of mine. I can’t remember her name._

Jen’s text says, _Ooooooooooh, compatible sexualities,_ and has a bunch of winky faces. Seriously.

 _You don’t think that’s true?_ Derek asks. They shuffle forward in line two steps. Some old lady is digging through her ginormous purse for a Driver’s License. Stiles thinks that he may die in this security line.

Good thing he has Derek’s excellent conversation to keep him company.

 _No,_ Jen says.

_So you have friends that are straight guys, or whatever? Just friends?_

_…No,_ Jen says. And then immediately says, _I can get one, if it’s important to you!!!_

Yes. Three exclamation points. Also, another smiley face.

 _HEATHER JOHNSON_ , Derek texts back in all caps, which is maybe the most expression that he has ever used in his life, ever, especially in a text message

_…What?_

_Her name was Heather Johnson. My friend from college. That would have bothered me all day._

_I’ll miss you,_ Jen says back, with a blowing kiss emoji, like that’s at all a sensible response to what Derek had said.

Stiles rolls his eyes.

 _I love you,_ her next text says. Judging from the tension in Derek’s shoulders, Stiles thinks that this is maybe a new development.

Derek takes a long time to respond. He glances over his shoulder, and Stiles quickly removes his eyes from Derek’s phone and puts them back on his own.

Derek types something short. When he goes to lock the screen, Stiles sees that he’s written, _Love you,_ back to ‘Jen’ with the heart emoji after her name.

Stiles hands his boarding pass and driver’s license to the TSA agent, and tells himself to stop staring at Derek Hale.

…

Derek thinks about Jen while he takes his seat, 10B, and while the flight attendants give the mandatory safety talk. He thinks about her while the plane taxis to the runway, and while it takes off. He thinks about her until they’re 10,000 feet above the Bay Area and he is free to use his portable electronic devices.

He also thinks about Stiles Stilinski, who, as it turns out, is not only on his plane, but sitting right behind him, in 11C. And also staring at him, probably, because that’s what he did the whole time he was standing behind Derek in line to get through security.

But he mostly thinks about Jen. He thinks about the way she kisses him, and the way her eyes shine, but he also thinks about the way that she had just told him that she loves him for the first time. Over a text message.

He’s happy about it, of course. But it seemed a little weird, coming that way. He thinks that he handled it okay, despite having no clue what to do in such a situation, and despite the fact that he is, as Laura always tells him, socially inept.

He thinks about Jen, and about that text message, until the flight attendant comes by with the drink cart. The lady next to him orders a Diet Coke, and Derek orders a regular tomato juice, filled up about three quarters, with a splash of Bloody Mary mix (just a splash), and a little piece of lime, but on the side.

And then he’s tapped on the shoulder, and Stiles’ face is suddenly very close to him, and Stiles says brightly, “The University of Chicago, right?”

“Yes.” Derek says, and turns back to the flight attendant to retrieve his beverage.

Stiles taps his shoulder again. “Did you look this good at the University of Chicago?” He says, and actually winks.

Derek takes a deep, calming breath. He thought he’d remembered how annoying Stiles could be, but clearly, he’d been wrong. “No,” Derek grits out. Because he’s been seeing a personal trainer, and he looks good, and he’s proud of himself. It doesn’t hurt that Jennifer looks at him with worshipful eyes whenever he takes his shirt off. Or that he’s talking to Stiles, who had so blatantly hit on him five years ago, when he _hadn’t_ looked this good.

That alone makes every pull-up worth it.

“Did we ever…” Stiles trails off lecherously, and thrusts his fist forward a few times.

“No!” Derek says, outraged. Does Stiles seriously not remember him? Derek had known who he was ever since he’d first seen Stiles staring at him in the airport.

The guy sitting next to Derek looks outraged, too, but at least he’s stopped typing so obnoxiously loudly on the laptop he’d whipped out as soon as it was allowed. He’s been writing emails for twenty minutes, presumably to send once he gets back into the land of free wifi, and he signs everything Greenberg, no first name.

Derek sort of hates him.

But he doesn’t want him to have the wrong impression, either, so he explains, “We drove together from school to San Francisco after graduation,” and then turns back to his tomato juice.

“Do you want to sit together?” Greenberg asks, already closing his laptop.

“No!” Derek says hastily, but Stiles says, “Yes!” louder, so Greenberg gets into the aisle and lets Stiles fall into seat 10C.

Stiles looks at him speculatively for a moment, and then says, “You were friends with…”

“Heather.” Derek says. “I can’t believe you can’t remember.” He’s a hypocrite. So what?

“I can remember,” Stiles says, supremely offended, “I totally remember her, Heather Jameson.”

“Johnson,” Derek corrects. Because he’s a hypocrite.

“So, what happened to her?”

“I have no idea,” Derek admits. They’re Facebook friends, he thinks, but he never goes on Facebook.

“Wow,” Stiles says, shaking his head, “You have no idea. Sad. And you were such good friends, too. You know, that’s the reason why you turned me down.”

“It is not!” Derek says, even though it mostly was. Because he’s man enough to admit that Stiles looks better than he had five years ago, too, and he’d been cute back then. He’s grown his hair out, and maybe actually invested in some styling product and a fitted pair of pants.

“Well, I hope it was worth it,” Stiles says. “The sacrifice you made for your friendship.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, lifting his chin, “I have _never_ considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice.”

Stiles just raises his eyebrows.

Derek drinks his tomato juice, and then orders a coffee, black and hot, when the flight attendant comes back.

“So, you were going to be a waiter,” Stiles says, smirking like he knows he’s wrong.

“A writer,” Derek grits out.

“And?”

“I am a writer. For San Francisco magazine.”

Stiles nods. “And you’re with Jennifer.”

It’s not a question, so Derek doesn’t answer.

“That’s so awesome,” Stiles continues. “How long you been together, a month?”

“Six weeks,” Derek says suspiciously, “How did you know?”

“Oh,” Stiles says dismissively, waving a hand in the air, “You’re still in the honeymoon phase. Clearly. Plus, she dropped you off at the airport in the middle of a work day instead of calling a cab for you. So, new relationship.”

Derek just stares at him.

“I never take anyone to the airport,” Stiles says, leaning in like he’s telling a secret, “Because then, later, they have no reason to say, ‘you never take me to the airport anymore!’”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“Are you going to ask her to marry you?” Stiles says, like that’s a totally normal thing to ask a total stranger with a total relationship time of six weeks.

“What? We’ve been together six weeks, Stiles,” Derek says, feeling more scandalized than maybe he ought to. After all, he does love her.  So he adds, “Besides, both of us have careers and goals, and neither of us are looking for marriage at this point in our lives.”

Stiles nods, like he’s agreeing that that’s a sensible plan, and then opens his big mouth, and says cheerfully, “I’m getting married.”

Which… what?

And Derek may actually say that. And then add, in sort of a surprised tone, “Who _is_ she?”

Stiles just nods, and grins, and says, “Her name’s Lydia Martin, she’s a lawyer, she’s keeping her name.” 

Wow.

Stiles beams even wider, and says sort of dreamily, “It’s just amazing what falling madly in love with someone can do. God, she’s just so beautiful. She has strawberry blonde hair, and green eyes…” he drifts off, lost in reverie.

“Sounds great,” says Derek, to break that reverie. He doesn’t want Stiles to start drooling all over the place. Or humping something.

Because apparently, that’s what this Lydia girl does to him.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, in a more normal tone. “Plus, I can’t deny that it’s nice to finally… settle down, you know? Stop the madness.”

“The madness.”

“The whole crazy dating game!” Stiles says. “You know, you get her number, you text for a while, eventually you work up the courage to go to coffee. Then maybe you graduate to lunch, or dinner, or take her to a club, do a little fist pumping,” he breaks off to close his eyes and pump his fist to an imaginary dance beat. “And then, if you get through all that, and you’re still interested, and _she’s_ still interested, then you get to have sex.” He nods sagely. Derek thinks he’s full of shit, and he says so with his eyebrows.

“But then,” Stiles continues dramatically, “You have to play the tricky game of post-coital cuddling.”

“Oh, really,” Derek says.

“Yeah. Because most women, and sure, a lot of guys, too, like to be held after sex, right?”

He looks like he’s waiting for confirmation, so Derek shrugs.

“But I’ve got work in the morning, I’ve got things to do, I just want to go home. But how long do I have to hold her? Or him? Is thirty seconds enough? Do they want to be held all night?” Stiles points a finger at him. “ _That’s_ the madness. So, you get married, and all that goes away.”

Derek doesn’t think that that’s how marriage works. But he just sips his coffee, black and hot, and doesn’t say anything.

…

Stiles deplanes before Derek does, but loses him when Stiles goes to the bathroom. By the time he sees Derek’s dark head (and distinctively wide shoulders) through the crowd, Derek is standing politely to the left on the moving sidewalk, just like the tinny airport recording is telling him to do.

Stiles shoulders his way through the crowd, and plants himself on the right, in the ‘walk’ lane, airport voice be damned.

“You staying the night?” Stiles asks, and Derek jumps, startled.

“Yes,” he says warily. It’s a little cute, that he seems to be scared of Stiles, especially since he’s got at least fifty pounds of solid muscle on him.

“You want to have dinner?” Stiles asks pleasantly.

Derek looks aghast, so Stiles rolls his eyes, and adds, “As friends?” As though that shouldn’t already be obvious.

“I thought that you said that people of ‘compatible sexualities’ couldn’t be friends,” Derek says.

“When did I say that?” Asks Stiles, even though he knows perfectly well when he said that.

“When we drove out from Chicago.”

“No, I didn’t,” Stiles says, but mostly because he wants an excuse to look at Derek’s face for another hour, and not because he doesn’t remember saying it.

And it’s not a sex thing. It’s a ‘Derek’s-face-and-body-are-works-of-art-and-everybody-should-enjoy-fine-art’ thing. Besides, both of them are in relationships. In fact…

“Fine,” he admits, “I said it. But it’s an exemption to the rule if both people are in relationships. Then they can be friends.”

Derek raises one eyebrow. Stiles had been so right about that. “The pressure of involvement is lifted!” Stiles explains. That should have been totally obvious.

Derek starts walking, even though he’s a fool if he thinks that he can get away from a determined Stiles. But Stiles is a little offended at being brushed off, so he chases after him and says, “No, you know what, that doesn’t work either. Then the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with.” Stiles thinks that this is a very good point, and not just because Lydia might castrate him if he showed up with a ‘just friend’ who looked like Derek and Stiles quite likes his balls right where they are currently.

Derek keeps walking, dodging an exhausted looking mother who has parked herself to the side of the moving sidewalk, bouncing the infant in her arms.

“Because that would mean that something was missing from the relationship, right?” Stiles says, panting a bit, because Derek’s a fast walker, goddamn it, “And why should you have to go outside the relationship to get it?”

“Excuse me,” Derek mutters, as he shoves a business man aside.

“But then, when you say that nothing’s missing, then your significant other accuses you of being attracted to your ‘just friend,’” Stiles continues, “So I was right the first time. Attractive people of compatible sexualities can’t be friends.” He smiles, beatifically.

“Stiles,” Derek finally says, and fixes Stiles with a firm look, “Goodbye.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. So, no dinner. And that’s a shame, too, because watching Derek order probably would have been the high point of his evening. “Yeah. Bye.”

Then they do that awkward thing where they both start walking in the same direction at the same time after already saying goodbye.

“Stiles,” Derek says in annoyance.

“Yeah, sorry,” Stiles says. He stops, and waves Derek on. “You go ahead.”

It takes a long time for Derek to disappear into the crowd.

…

_“We were married forty years ago. We were married three years, we got a divorce. Then I married Marjorie.”_

_“But first you lived with Barbara.”_

_“Right, Barbara. But I didn’t marry Barbara, I married Marjorie.”_

_“Then he got a divorce.”_

_“Right, then I married Katie.”_

_“Another divorce.”_

_“Then, a couple of years later, at Eddie Collecio’s funeral, I ran into her. I was with some girl I don’t even remember.”_

_“Roberta.”_

_“Right, Roberta. But I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I remember, I snuck over to her, and I said… What did I say?”_

_“You said, ‘What are you doing after?’”_

_“Right. So I ditch Roberta, we go for coffee, a month later we’re married.”_

_“Thirty-five years to the day after our first marriage.”_

_…_

FIVE YEARS LATER

…

“So I went through Isaac’s pockets,” Allison says mournfully.

Derek looks over at Kira, and they roll their eyes together. It’s not that he doesn’t have sympathy for Allison—she’s probably his best friend in the city, and it’s a friendship that works well for them—but this is the third time since they sat down for lunch that she’s brought up her _problem_. After having spent their college years apart, he had reconnected with Allison, a childhood friend, when she moved to San Francisco. And despite what _some_ people might have to say about it, there’s no hint of sexual attraction in their relationship, even though they are of ‘compatible sexualities.’

“I’ll never understand why you torture yourself like that, Allison,” Kira says, and takes a sip of her tea. Kira’s a friend of Allison’s from work, and Derek’s not as close to her, but they get along well. And it’s nice, having someone to roll his eyes with when Allison starts in on her _problem_.

Because Allison, despite being an otherwise professional young woman with her life well in order, can’t seem to disentangle herself from _Isaac, the problem._ Who is married to another woman, and has been for five years.

“They just brought a new refrigerator,” Allison says, poking at her salad with a fork, “I found the receipt. He and his wife just bought a $2000 refrigerator together.”

“What kind?” Kira asks.

“It doesn’t matter! The point is, that he’s never going to leave her!”

“Allison,” Kira says, with great patience, “You’ve known this since you got involved with him. Two years ago.”

“You’re right,” Allison says, leaning back. “I know you’re right.”

She rearranges her cutlery, so her knives and forks are all lined up properly. Then she says, “I was talking to Isaac last night and he said—”

“Jen and I broke up,” Derek interrupts.

Allison and Kira both stare at him, mouths open.

“What?” Kira says.

“When?” Allison asks.

Derek clears his throat. “Monday.”

Allison shoves his shoulder, but gently, sympathetically. “You waited three days to tell us?”

“Allison!” Kira says, “He’s obviously upset!”

“I’m not,” Derek says, truthfully, “Not really. We’ve been… growing apart. For quite a while.”

“But…” Allison says, her forehead crinkling in confusion, “You were a couple! You could go places together, bring her home for the holidays!”

Derek thinks that this is probably one of Allison’s biggest regrets about being involved with a married man—the fact that no one can know about it.

“Look,” Derek says, and takes a sip of his coffee, black and hot, “I’m thirty-one years old. I just thought that I deserved more. And Jen, too, for that matter.”

“And the clock is ticking,” Kira says, “for her at least.”

Derek winces. “Jen doesn’t want kids, I don’t think that matters,” he says. Allison looks at him speculatively.

“Is that why—” She starts, but Derek doesn’t want to talk about it, so he says quickly, “I’m fine.”

“Wow,” Kira says, “You’re in great shape.”

“Well, I’ve had a few days to get used to the idea. I think I’ll be okay, really.”

“Do you want me to set you up with someone?” Allison asks, perking up and ignoring Kira’s outraged look. “I mean, if you’re ready.”

“I don’t think I am,” Derek says. “I need some time to readjust. I’m in, you know, a mourning period.”

Allison looks at him with huge brown eyes.

“Who did you have in mind,” Derek sighs. He never could stand up against those eyes. Or those damn dimples.

“Oh, I know tons of nice guys. Maybe someone from the station!” She whips out her phone and starts scrolling through her contacts. “Oh! Matt Daehler.”

Derek scoffs.

“What? He’s cute!”

“You set me up with him years ago,” Derek says. “He’s a creep. A creep with a lizard collection.”

“Oh,” Allison says, “Yeah, I do remember that. Hey, what about Boyd?”

Kira snorts, and chokes on her water. “I’m pretty sure he’s straight. Plus, he got married, like a year ago.”

“Oh,” says Allison again, sadly.

“Look,” Derek says, kindly, so that Allison doesn’t turn those huge weepy eyes on him again, “There’s no point in me going out with someone right now that I might really like under different circumstances. I’m just not in the right place for it.”

“Okay,” Allison sighs, slipping her phone back into her purse, “But don’t wait too long, okay? I just want you to be happy.” She says it in the same way that Laura says it, whenever he calls her. He thinks that Laura and Allison probably talk about him all the time. And conspire against him. He feels very fond of her, suddenly.

“Plus,” she says, “Someone else could snatch the perfect person up while you’re mourning. And then you would have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your spouse.”

The fond feeling disappears.

…

“When did this happen?” Scott says, softly, like Stiles is fragile.

Which, yeah, Stiles can admit that, right now, he is _not okay._

“Friday,” Stiles says sadly, and takes a swig of beer. It’s his third of the morning, and it’s only 11 o’clock, but Scott doesn’t need to know that.

They’re both silent. On the TV, someone strikes out and the inning ends. Fucking perfect. That’s just what Stiles needed right now, to watch the Mets lose.

Stiles sighs. Scott’s obviously isn’t going to push him for more information, not after Stiles called him a half an hour ago sobbing, after holding himself together all weekend. Stiles hasn’t cried like that since his mom died. And he’s not sure that he really wants to talk about it, but he thinks that he needs to, so he says, “She came home from work, and she just said, ‘I don’t think I want to be married anymore.’ But kind of like it wasn’t me, you know? Like it was nothing personal, just the idea of marriage in general.”

Scott nods.

“So I said sure, we should take some time to think about it, not rush into anything.” Because Stiles would have done anything to keep Lydia happy. But apparently even that hadn’t been enough.

“Sure,” Scott says. He puts a hand on Stiles’ knee, like he’s giving him strength. Scott’s a great friend.

They watch a beer commercial.

“But then, the next morning, she tells me that she _has_ thought about it, and that she thinks she wants to try a separation. Like it’s nothing permanent. She even said that we could still date.” Stiles buries his head in his hands, and tries to blink back tears. “Who wants to date their own wife?” He chokes.

Scott rubs his knee soothingly.

“Because you’ve already married her, you know? She’s supposed to love you. So I’m telling her this, and then I’m just thinking that… maybe she doesn’t. So I asked her.”

Scott waits a long time before he says, “And?”

“And she said that she didn’t love me!” Stiles explodes. “She said that she thought that maybe she never had.”

And it still hurts, just like it had yesterday morning. And Lydia had still been so beautiful, standing there in her weekend clothes—the one time of the week where she would actually wear denim—looking at him sympathetically. Like if she was sorry enough for the things she was saying to him, maybe it wouldn’t kill him. Like he didn’t feel like she had just carved his chest open with the big kitchen knife he used to cut their Friday steaks and then taken his heart in her hand and crushed it slowly, right in front of his eyes. Stiles had thought that maybe he was having a heart attack, at the time, because his chest had been so tight, and he had felt sort of numb.

But it was just heartbreak, after all.

“Wow,” Scott says, “That’s… God, I’m so sorry, Stiles.”

“Anyway,” Stiles says, after he’s wiped the tears from his eyes and the third baseman has fumbled the ball, “Then, with the very next breath, she’s telling me that someone in her office is moving to Europe, so she can sublet his apartment.”

“She’s moving out?” Scott says, like he hadn’t noticed when he came in that the apartment is twice as empty as it should be.

“Yeah, and it’s right after she’s saying this, like, literally, the words have _just_ left her mouth and are still sort of hanging there in the air like she’s a cartoon character with a speech bubble or something, when the doorbell rings. And I answer the door, and there’re three movers standing there, looking at me all expectantly.”

Scott winces.

“So then I turn around and ask her, ‘When did you call these movers?’ Because clearly, it was before we had this little talk, and she just doesn’t answer. She just sort of looks at me, all pityingly. So then I ask this mover, this gigantic guy who could probably bench-press _me,_ and he’s wearing this dumb “Hannah Montana” T-shirt, and I ask him, ‘When did she call you?’”

“What did he say?” Scott asks.

“He didn’t. Lydia comes up, and she puts her hand on my arm, and she just says sort of pityingly, ‘A week ago.’”

“Oh my God,” Scott says, sort of faintly. The center fielder misses an easy fly ball. _Jesus Christ._

“Right. So then I ask her, ‘You’ve known for a week, and you didn’t say anything?’ Thinking that that was a reasonable question to ask my _wife._ ”

“Sure,” Scott agrees.

“And then,” Stiles starts laughing, sort of, but there’re also tears running down his face, and a whole bunch of snot, and Scott shoves a tissue under his nose, “And then, she says, ‘I didn’t want to ruin your birthday.’”

Scott just sort of stares at him. Kind of like Stiles had just stared at Lydia, yesterday. “Hannah Montana dude knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?” He says after a minute.

Stiles nods, miserably, and Scott hugs him, which helps. A little.

“But I haven’t even told you the bad part yet,” He chokes. He’s getting snot all over the collar of Scott’s T-shirt, but Stiles thinks that he probably won’t care. Scott’s a good guy like that.

“It gets worse?” Scott asks, horrified, and Stiles nods again.

“She’s leaving me for another man.”

“What?!?” Scott says, and he hold Stiles at arm’s length to look him in the eyes, “She said that?”

“It’s some tax attorney,” Stiles says, “She didn’t tell me. I followed her. I stood outside his apartment.”

“Oh, man,” Scott says, and hugs him again.

At least he didn’t react like all the relationship-help websites had, when Stiles had looked at them last night when he couldn’t sleep, pretending that it wasn’t already too late for him and Lydia.

 _Marriages don’t break up because of infidelity,_ one of them had said, obnoxiously, pretentiously. _Infidelity is a symptom that something else in the relationship is wrong._

Stiles had gotten a very nasty late night call from his landlord, because apparently he had woken up the neighbors when he had yelled, “That symptom is fucking my wife!” At the computer screen at three o’clock in the morning.

But Scott just holds him for a while, and then gets him another beer. God bless him for that.

The Mets lose.

…

“So I just happened to see Isaac’s credit card bill,” Allison says, running a finger over the spine of another shiny book that promises to make Derek love himself.

“You just happened to?” Derek asks suspiciously.

“Well… he was in the shower and his computer was unlocked. Hey, I’m a detective, I can’t help it!” She adds indignantly when Derek fixes her with a look.

“Don’t you want to know what I found?” She asks, when Derek doesn’t.

“No,” he says.

“He just spent $120 for a new nightgown for his wife.” She sighs, heavily. “I don’t think he’s ever going to leave her.”

Derek grabs her by both shoulders and looks her straight in the eye. “No one thinks he’s ever going to leave her,” he says seriously.

“You’re right, I know you’re right,” she says sadly. She reads the back of a book that claims to help women learn to love the single life. Then she pokes him in the shoulder. Hard.

“Someone is staring at you in personal growth,” She hisses. 

Derek looks up to find _Stiles Stilinski_ peering at him over the cover of some book about how to better communicate with your partner. Stiles catches him looking, and turns a page quickly.

“I know him,” he tells her, because as a cop, she’s a little jumpy about strange men staring at people.

“That’s Stiles Stilinski. You’d like him, he’s married.”

She slaps his arm.

Derek rolls his eyes. “He’s a lawyer, he used to work with Jen.”

“He’s cute!” She says, now dimpling and nudging him with an elbow, “How do you know he’s married?”

“Because, when I saw him five years ago, he was _getting_ married.

“So? maybe he’s not married anymore.”

“You’re horrible,” Derek tells her. “Besides, he’s obnoxious.”

“Yeah, that’s just the way it always happens in the movies! Remember _Pride and Prejudice_?”

Derek was an English major; of course he remembers _Pride and Prejudice._ He’s more partial to the book than to the five hour BBC production that Allison likes to watch when she’s feeling homesick, though.

“It’s always like, ‘You’re the most contemptible man I’ve ever met!’ And then they fall deeply in love,” Allison continues wisely.

“He doesn’t even remember me,” Derek says, because the last time they met, at the airport, Stiles had recognized Jen before he’d noticed Derek.

“Derek Hale,” Stiles says, as if to prove him wrong.

Derek pulls off the reading glasses he’s been wearing, and not just because Laura had teased him that they made him look like an old man the one time he’d forgotten to take them off when they Skyped.

“Hi, Stiles,” he says. Stiles is looking a little thinner than the last time Derek had seen him, and he’s wearing sort of a scruffy beard, but not in the manner of someone trying to grow a beard as much as in the manner of someone who’s just forgotten to shave for a week.

They stare at each other for a minute, and then Derek remembers his manners and says, “Oh, this is Allison…” turning to look at her, but she’s just a flash of dark hair disappearing around a bookshelf.

Derek clears his throat. “That… _was_ Allison.”

“How are you?” Stiles asks.

“Fine.”

“How’s Jen?”

Derek swallows, and puts the book he’s still holding back on the shelf. “She’s… fine. I think. I hear she’s fine.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, looking startled, “You’re not…?”

“We just broke up,” Derek says. “How’s… married life?” He can’t remember the name of the girl that Stiles had been engaged to, before.

Stiles’ face falls. “It’s not so good. I’m, uh, getting divorced.” The smile he puts on his face looks strange and brittle.

“Shit,” Derek says, “God, I’m sorry.”

Stiles just shrugs. “What can you do?” He kicks the ground a few times, and looks around. “So,” he says, brightening, “What happened with you guys?”

…

“Jen and I had always wanted the same thing,” Derek says, gazing soulfully into his cup of coffee. He takes it black, which Stiles thinks is disgusting, but he has to admit that it’s probably more frugal, especially at a place like this overpriced Barnes&Noble Café that he and Derek had wandered over to when it looked like the conversation was going to be more complex than ‘we broke up.’ “That’s part of why we were always so good together. Because we knew going in that neither of us wanted to get married, but we still wanted to live together. It was great, you know? We still got to do all the couple stuff, but we didn’t have any of the marriage problems.”

“Marriage problems?” Stiles echoes, like he hasn’t become intimately acquainted with some marriage problems of his own recently.

“Sure. They never tell you, but getting married means that you stop having sex.”

“That’s not true!” Stiles protests, but it’s hollow. Now that he thinks about it, he and Lydia hadn’t had nearly as much sex after they had tied the knot as they had even during their engagement, though they had been living together then, too.

“Well, anyway. I would talk to people like Laura, you know?” Stiles nods, because he does remember Derek’s older sister, the owner of the Camaro, “Well, she got married four years ago, and they have a two-year-old little girl, Cora. But every time we talk, she complains about how she and her husband never have sex anymore. But it’s not even complaining, really, now that I think about it, it’s just like a matter of fact. They just don’t have the time or energy.” Derek smiles, a little ruefully, “Not that that’s the sort of thing that’s very comfortable to discuss with your sister either way.”

Stiles actually cracks a smile at that. It feels a little creaky, like he hasn’t gotten enough practice smiling lately. He doesn’t remember Derek ever having been this talkative before, but he has to admit that he’s enough of a dick that it’s nice hearing about how someone else fucked up their relationship, instead of dwelling on how he’d fucked his own up.

“And then Jen and I would talk about how lucky we were that our relationship was different. We could just drive off on a moment’s notice and take a weekend trip, or have sex wherever and whenever we wanted without worrying about the kids wandering in.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, and takes a sip of his own ridiculously overpriced, if blissfully sweet, coffee beverage.

“But then Laura came and visited last month, with her family. And it was the day they were flying out, and Jen had to work, and I told Laura that I’d take Cora for the morning. We went to the zoo. Cora loves animals, the wolves are her favorites. She likes to sit on my shoulders so she can see better, and she howls at them; I think Laura got her a tape about them, or something.” Derek’s smile is soft and fond. Stiles can just picture him with a tiny, wide-eyed little girl up on his broad shoulders so she’s able to see everything, pointing at all the zoo animals and fisting tiny hands in his dark hair. The image is surprisingly sweet.

“Anyway,” Derek says, clearing his throat, “We were there on a Friday morning, and there were all these other little kids there with their parents, and we were standing in line for an ice cream, and we started to play I spy. You know, I spy the gorillas, I spy a tree. And I’m just holding her, and she says, ‘Look, Uncle Der-der, I spy a family!’ And she’s pointing at a couple of kids a few feet away, who are there with their mom and dad. And it just sort of hit me, that I want that. Not right now, but someday.”

Stiles nods, sort of sadly. He had wanted kids, too, tiny babies with strawberry blonde hair and green eyes.

“So it was that night, after I took Laura to the airport, and Jen came home from work. And I just… you know, I said, ‘Jen, we never actually go anywhere on a moment’s notice.’”

He looks into his coffee again.

“And the sex?” Stiles prompts.

“Only in the bedroom,” Derek says with a sad headshake, “Very boring. So we talked about it for a few hours, and then I told her what I wanted, and she said that she never would, and so I said, ‘Well, I guess this is it.’ And that was it.”

“Wow,” Stiles says.

“But… I don’t know, I feel really good about it. I think I’m over her. And every time that I think about it, I’m more and more sure that I did the right thing.”

“Wow,” Stiles says again, because he wishes that he was anywhere _near_ that level of closure with his own relationship. “You sound really healthy.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, but his eyes are sad.

…

“Well,” Derek says as he walks Stiles back to his apartment, which turned out to be only a few blocks from the bookstore. He’s not used to Stiles being this quiet. He’d gotten the story of Stiles own recent breakup after he’d finished his own sob story, but since it went something like, ‘She decided she didn’t want to be married, so she moved out of my apartment and into some other guy’s,’ he suspects that it was something of an abridged version.

Which is strange, because he’s never gotten an abridged anything from Stiles before.

“At least you got the apartment,” he finishes lamely.

“Yeah,” Stiles says bitterly, “But what’s so hard about finding an apartment?”

They walk another block, Stiles scuffing his shoes on the cement the whole way. “You know,” he says, as they edge around a woman in bright pink lycra walking a tiny white dog, “The first time we met, I didn’t like you that much.”

“I didn’t like you at all,” Derek says, which is true. Stiles had been obnoxious and loud, and he’d had a weird name. He’s kept the name, but he’s mellowed a little, at least.

“Yeah, you did,” Stiles says, with something of a shit eating grin. So maybe not so mellow after all. “You just had a stick jammed so far up your ass that you wouldn’t admit it. You’re much softer now.”

“I hate that,” Derek says. “Don’t say something like it’s a compliment when really it’s an insult.” It’s the kind of remark he’d gotten all through high school, the same as, ‘you’ve really grown into those huge ears,’ or ‘your teeth don’t look nearly as funny as they used to.’

“Fine,” Stiles says easily, “You’re still a total hard-ass.”

“I just didn’t want to sleep with you! You’re the one who made it out to be some sort of character flaw instead of dealing with the possibility that it might have something to do with you.”

Stiles shrugs, as if to say, _fair enough._ “If it’s been ten years,” he says, stopping in front of what Derek presumes is his apartment, “Am I still allowed to apologize?”

Derek considers him for a long moment. “Yes.”

The smile Stiles wears is a little shy, and for some reason, it prompts Derek to ask, “Would you like to have dinner sometime?”

“Are we becoming friends?” Stiles asks warily.

“Well… yeah. We are.”

“Huh,” Stiles says, “A new friend.”

He takes Derek’s phone number before he disappears into his building.

…

_“We were both born in the same hospital.”_

_“In 1921.”_

_“Seven days apart.”_

_“In the same hospital.”_

_“We both grew up one block away from each other.”_

_“We both lived in tenements.”_

_“On the Lower East Side.”_

_“On Delancey Street.”_

_“My family moved to the Bronx when I was ten.”_

_“He lived on Fordham Road.”_

_“Her’s moved when she was eleven.”_

_“I lived on 183 rd Street.”_

_“For six years she worked on the fifteenth floor—”_

_“I worked for a very prominent neurologist—”_

_“—As a nurse, where I had a practice on the fourteenth floor of the very same building.”_

_“—Dr. Bemelman. We never met.”_

_“Never met.”_

_“Can you imagine that?”_

_“Do you know where we met? In an elevator—”_

_“I was visiting family—”_

_“—In the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.”_

_“—He was on the third floor, I was on the twelfth.”_

_“I rode up nine extra floors just to keep talking to her.”_

_“Nine extra floors.”_

_…_

Being friends with Derek is… nice.

Stiles doesn’t really have many friends besides Scott, never has. Not that he doesn’t _know_ people, but when he needs somebody to call at 1 o’clock in the morning because he found a bottle of Lydia’s perfume and was stupid enough to spray it… That’s always been a list of one.

But now it’s a list of two, because he can call Derek.

Like the night he texts him at 2:30 AM. It’s been a bad night, and Scott’s already drifted off on the phone with him, so Stiles figures it’s time to let him get his beauty rest.

 _Are you up?_ He says, because it’s less obnoxious than calling, especially since there’s a ninety-five percent chance that Derek’s already asleep.

 _Yeah,_ he gets back a minute later. And then, _What’s up?_

_Couldn’t sleep. Why are you up?_

_Same, I guess. I was watching Casablanca, actually._

Stiles gives up, and actually calls him. Derek’s voice is warm and a little sleepy, and Stiles finds Casablanca on his own TV. There’s about twenty minutes left.

“I can’t believe you said that you would rather go to Czechoslovakia than stay in Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart,” Stiles tells him when he picks up the phone.

“What?” Derek says. Stiles can hear crumpling in the background, like Derek turned a page. Derek’s always reading books and doing something else at the same time, and it drives Stiles crazy. Derek can’t just sit down and watch TV without something else to do at the same time, which totally defeats the purpose of TV, in Stiles’ opinion. It also means he’s constantly wearing those reading glasses, which drives Stiles crazy for a whole different reason. “I never said that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Stiles says, “On the drive from Chicago.”

“I never said that,” Derek says firmly, so Stiles just decides to let it go. Maybe that means Derek’s finally had some good sex, at least, only Stiles doesn’t want to think about it, since it probably happened with Jen. Also, it’s not a good policy to think about your very attractive friend’s sex life.

“Fine, have it your way,” Stiles sighs.

The watch five minutes of the movie in silence, but it’s still kind of nice to know that there’s someone on the other end. Just being there.

“Have you been sleeping?” Stiles asks after a while, even though he knows that this will inevitably lead to relationship talk, which he’s been avoiding. Especially with Derek, because he, unlike Stiles, is handling everything very well and it’s a lot of pressure to try to compete with that.

“Yeah,” Derek says, “Except for tonight. Yesterday I went to bed at 8:30, which I haven’t done since I was nine.” Which is probably also the reason that he’s up so late tonight, Stiles doesn’t say to him. He must be maxed out on sleep, or something.

“I haven’t been sleeping.”

Derek gives a considering _hmmmm_ sound.

“I really miss Lydia,” Stiles sighs, unthinkingly. Yep. There it is. Exactly what he’d be trying to avoid talking about.

“I don’t really miss Jen,” Derek says, but the way that his voice is a little hollow, Stiles thinks that Derek would almost prefer it if he did miss her. But he wouldn’t actually prefer it, because take it from Stiles, that is a miserable place to be.

“Are you still sleeping on the same side of the bed?” Stiles wonders idly. His bed is still half a shrine to Lydia. Her side of the covers don’t even get pulled down. Her pillow still has the dent in it where her perfectly coiffed head used to rest every night.

“I usually end up sort of in the middle,” Derek admits grudgingly, “Always have. It used to drive Jen crazy.”

“I still sleep on the same side,” Stiles says. “It feels so weird when a limb just sort of _wanders_ over. And there’s nobody else there in the way, you know?”

Derek makes that same humming sound again. “I think maybe I just miss the idea of Jen,” Derek says after a pause.

“Hey,” Stiles says, brightening, “Maybe I only miss the idea of Lydia!” He thinks hard about it for a minute, but he realizes that everything he thinks about still bears the imprint of red hair and high heels.

“No,” He says sadly, “I miss the whole Lydia.”

Mercifully, the final scene of the movie comes on before Stiles can wallow in self-pity for any longer.

Ingrid Bergman tells Rick she’ll miss him. She totally wants to stay.

“Ingrid Bergman,” Stiles sighs, because even with a name like Ingrid, she’s totally hot. And unlike Lydia… “I bet she’s super low maintenance.”

“Low maintenance?” Derek repeats skeptically.

“Sure. Like, some people are high maintenance, and some people are low maintenance. Lydia? The highest of maintenances. Ingrid Bergman? Low maintenance.”

“Which one am I?”

Stiles considers for a moment. Derek wants to hear low maintenance, clearly, but Stiles is having flashbacks to all the wait staff who have given him long suffering looks over the past few weeks. “You think you’re low maintenance, but you’re really high maintenance.”

“I am not!” Derek says indignantly.

“Really?” Stiles says, and then effects a deeper, gruffer voice, “I’d like to start with the salad, but I won’t have the dressing, I’ll have the balsamic vinegar, but on the side. Then I’ll have the salmon with mustard sauce, but I want that on the side, and then—”

“Okay!” Derek says, cutting him off, and then says primly, “I just want it the way I want it.”

“Also,” Stiles says, “I’ve seen all the hair products in your bathroom.” Although Lydia does have him beat by about three fold. Or rather, she did have him beat. Past tense.

As if in agreement, they both shut up so that they can hear Rick say, _‘Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’_

“Best last line of a movie ever,” Stiles sighs.

“Will you be able to sleep?” Derek says.  He sounds like he’s already about halfway there.

“If I can’t, I’ll be okay,” Stiles says grudgingly. There are probably some excellent infomercials on next.

Derek hums at him again, but it’s a low, comforting sort of rumble.

“Night,” Stiles says, and hangs up. He can picture Derek getting ready for bed: slipping off his reading glasses, dog-earing the book page even though he knows he shouldn’t, and slipping them onto his nightstand. Stiles almost wonders for a minute if he sleeps with a shirt on, or just in boxers, but Stiles doesn’t think about his friends in that way, so then he stops.

He pictures Derek shutting off his lamp and sprawling out in the middle of the bed. If he were here, he’d probably have a leg pressed up against Stiles, or an arm thrown over him, or something.

Somehow that thought makes it easier to sleep.

…

It’s easy to talk to Stiles, which is nice, because Derek doesn’t find it easy to talk to anybody.

Stiles apparently thinks it’s easy to talk to Derek, too, though Derek’s not under the illusion that this makes him special in any way. Stiles doesn’t have the same people issues that Derek does.

He also doesn’t have the same sharing problem. Right now, for instance, he’s telling Derek about this very vivid sexual dream he had last night that somehow involves him running through the woods being chased by…

“Wait, what?” Derek says.

“Not, like, an actual animal!” Stiles hastens to assure him, “Although, you know, no kink shaming. No, this guy’s definitely human. It’s just that, when he catches me, and we get down to business, so to speak, it’s definitely… animalistic.”

“Huh,” Derek says.

“It’s not weird,” Stiles informs him, “I’ve been having similar dreams for a while. And I grew up in a very heavily wooded area, so that’s where I had my formative sexual experiences.”

“In the woods,” Derek says dubiously.

“ _Near_ the woods,” Stiles says.

They’ve decided to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, something that Jen never wanted to do because of her paralyzing fear of heights. It’s a day of firsts for Derek, including Stiles suddenly asking him, “So, what’s your most common fantasy?”

“What?” Derek asks automatically. He can feel his ears flushing.

“Don’t you have one?”

“I don’t… I mean, I guess I do… But I’m not telling you!”

“Okay,” Stiles shrugs. Derek hates that. Because as soon as Stiles brushes him off like that, Derek tells him whatever he wants to know.

“Fine.” He looks around, but there aren’t any other pedestrians, and the rushing cars are loud enough that no one but Stiles can hear him, anyway. “It’s the same one I’ve been having since I was… I don’t know, twelve. So I get home, and there’s a girl in my bed.”

“What girl?” Stiles asks.

“Just… a girl. She doesn’t really have a face.”

“A faceless girl is lying on your bed?” Stiles raises an eyebrow, or at least he tries. His whole forehead sort of crinkles up, but Derek know what he’s aiming for. Derek glares.

“Anyway… she’s naked.”

“Is that it?”

“No, then I take my clothes off.”

“A generic naked girl,” Stiles says, sounding disappointed, “This is the same fantasy that you’ve been having since you were twelve?”

“Sometimes it’s a guy,” Derek says. Stiles sighs, heavily. Derek thinks that he probably disappoints Stiles

They stop in the middle of the bridge, where Stiles, thankfully, drops the sex thing.

“Hey,” Stiles says, after they’ve gazed over the water in silence for a while, “Would you like to go to the movies tonight?” They turn to walk back.

“Oh,” Derek says, examining the toes of his shoes very carefully, to avoid looking at Stiles, “I can’t.”

“You have a date?” Stiles teases him, nudging into him with a shoulder.

“Well,” Derek says softly, “Yeah. Actually.”

The smile falls off of Stiles’ face. Up here, the wind whipping up his hair, he looks young and vulnerable.

“Oh, wow,” he says. “Hey, that’s great! Congratulations!” He gives sort of a shaky laugh.

Derek nods. He’s surprised himself—a pretty woman had asked him out in the ice cream isle yesterday at the grocery store, and he’d said yes almost before he’d realized what he was doing. But it’s just one date.

“Stiles,” he says, “Maybe you should… you know, try to date, too?” Derek knows that the wounds Lydia left him with are still raw, but it’s been three months. A rebound couldn’t hurt.

“Oh, no,” Stiles says, and then he grins again, but it’s brittle, and slides off his face in a second. “I’m not ready.”

“Stiles…”

“I wouldn’t be good for anybody right now.”

“I think it’s time,” Derek tells him firmly.

Stiles looks at his shoes, but doesn’t disagree.

…

“It. Was. Horrible.” Stiles informs Derek, throwing open the door. Derek is holding a full travel cup of coffee in his hand, and is squinting like he’s still half asleep. But when Stiles had called him that morning and told him to come over, _now_ , it hadn’t been a suggestion.

“What?” Derek asks blearily. Stiles ushers him in, and then hands him a paint roller. He’s gotten tired of looking at the tasteful, modern, grey walls that Lydia had picked to match all of the tasteful, modern, metal and glass furniture that she’d picked. He’s painting everything a cheerful yellow, to catch the morning sun.

Derek grunts, but starts painting.

“My _date_ ,” Stiles hisses.

“Oh,” Derek says. He’s a good painter. He rolls it on evenly and methodically, and isn’t splattering any on his clothes, which is pretty much the exact opposite of Stiles, who’s already flecked with paint. He’s only done one wall. “Yeah, mine too.”

“Really?” Stiles asks. Derek doesn’t strike him as the type to have bad dates. He’s just too beautiful. But then Stiles remembers the way he said loftily, “Small talk is for small people,” when Stiles had seen the way he brushed off a colleague they’d bumped into at a restaurant. So yeah. He can see it.

“Kate,” Derek says. “She had a _thing_ for fire. She may actually have an arson record. I think I might have Allison check into it.” He refreshes the paint on his roller and takes a swig of coffee.

“Yeesh,” Stiles says. Beyond the fact that pyromania is sort of frightening to begin with, Stiles knows that Derek is more sensitive than most to the subject. He’d heard just last week about how Derek’s childhood home had gone up in flames when Derek was sixteen, and though thankfully all his family had escaped unscathed, the event had certainly left an impression on all of the Hales. And no wonder.

“Well,” Stiles sighs, deciding to officially give up rolling on paint and try his hand at the baseboards, instead, “I think I can safely say that mine was worse.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. So first, we go to this Ethiopian place that she picked out. And I’m telling jokes, like ‘Hey, I didn’t know that they _had_ food in Ethiopia. This should be a quick meal. We can just order two empty plates and then go!’” Derek chuckles, which Stiles finds reassuring. If Derek actually laughs at something, Stiles can be pretty damn sure that it’s funny.

“Right?” Stiles says, feeling vindicated. “But she didn’t laugh. Didn’t even crack a smile. She said that she didn’t think that it was very sensitive to say something like that. Insensitivity is part of my charm.”

Derek laughs again, but Stiles is less pleased, this time. He has plenty of charm, no matter what Derek insinuates.

“That’s not even the worst part. So we get to the end of dinner and then she pulls a hair out and flosses with it. At the table. A HAIR. Also, she talked about coyotes the entire time. Like, the entire time. God, I get that it’s her job, but it was two hours of nothing but coyotes.”

“Wow,” Derek says. “I think you win.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Stiles assures him. “So we’re leaving, still making small talk because nothing else is going anywhere, and I ask where she went to school, and she says UCLA, she studied biology. Which reminds me of Lydia, and so I start hyperventilating, and I had to go excuse myself to the bathroom to have a massive panic attack. Seriously. I had to call my dad to talk me out of it.”

“Jesus,” Derek winces, reaching out to touch Stiles’ shoulder, like he’s still having a panic attack. “You okay?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, waving him off.

“Lydia went to UCLA?” Derek asks, picking up his paint roller again.

“No, but she studied chemistry before she went to law school.” Derek gives him a blank look. “They’re both sciences.”

“Oh,” Derek says quietly. He keeps painting. “You know, it might take us a long time before we feel comfortable dating again.”

Stiles agrees, absently. He’s trying to remember his date’s name, which is bad, he knows, and Stiles is _not_ the guy who doesn’t remember the women he takes home. He’s not. But it’s just this one time that it so happens that he can’t remember her name, and he wants to remember it, if only so he can avoid her from now on. It was something really common, though, in his defense. Like Maria. Probably.

“It might take us even longer to feel comfortable sleeping with someone again.”

“Oh, I slept with her,” Stiles tells him.

“Stiles!”

“What?” Stiles says.

Derek just shakes his head, and finishes the wall he’s working on. They both step back and consider it. It looks better now. Like somewhere that Stiles would live, and not somewhere that Stiles-and-Lydia would live.

“Malia!” Stiles crows, and thrusts his paintbrush into the air. He feels the white trim paint glop down his knuckles and drip to the newspaper on the floor. “That was her name. It was Malia.”

Derek shakes his head again, sadly.

…

“He did what?” Allison gasps.

“Well, first off, he introduced himself as ‘Parrish,’ and nothing else,” Derek says. “I didn’t learn his first name until 20 minutes before the end of the date, when his sister called and he picked up the phone at the table.”

“He picked it up,” Kira says flatly, “Was someone dying?”

Derek shakes his head. Kira shakes hers.

“Anyway,” he continues, watching Allison pull a tray of cookies out of the oven, “Then he pretty much just talked about his life’s passion. Which is extreme couponing.

Allison crinkles her nose.

“Yeah,” Derek deadpans, “He has all these huge binders and everything.”

“Binders for what?” Allison asks, pulling out a spatula and prying the chocolate chip cookies off the tray.

“Clipped coupons,” Derek says, “He said he found cutting them up relaxing.”

Allison and Kira exchange _meaningful_ looks.

Derek buries his head in his hands. “He wanted to take me grocery shopping for our next date. To show me how accomplished a coupon-er he was.”

“I liked your friend, Stiles,” Kira pipes up.

“I want to meet him,” Allison pouts. She had planned on coming to meet them all for drinks the week before, but the station had gotten a last minute call. Kira’s been goading her with tidbits about Derek’s new and mysterious friend ever since, which Allison hates her for, but not really, because despite what she sometimes likes to pretend, Allison’s probably the nicest person Derek’s ever met. It’s actually alarming.

“Yeah,” Derek says to Kira, ignoring Allison’s silent glare as she continues to put cookies on a wire cooling rack, “That’s exactly it. We’re friends. We’d like it to stay that way.”

“I thought he was cute,” Kira persists, “You could totally get involved with him.”

“No,” Derek says, “He’s… he’s a mess.” And it’s true. Despite taking home, and then loudly bragging about, a parade of women and men over the month since that first date, Derek knows he’s still heartbroken about his wife leaving him and lodged firmly in the ‘rebound’ stage.

Allison frowns. “I’m helping you make cookies for a mess?”

“He’s a nice mess,” Derek says.

…

Scott whips the ball at him. “I do not understand this relationship,” he says.

Stiles shoots him a dirty look, and then runs after the shot that had just soared five feet to his left. “What’s not to get?” He said, panting. He has to admit, he and Scott having been so bad at lacrosse in high school is great for them now that they’re even worse, because they miss every other shot or so and then have to chase down the ball. Exercise.

“Isn’t he the guy that you were talking about when you said, and I quote, ‘God, he’s mean, but I’d climb him like a tree,’ when you drove back from Chicago together?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and his shot goes right to Scott, so _there_ , “But that was ten years ago. And he’s not mean, just… taciturn.” When Scott gives him a baffled look, he says, “ _Not talkative,”_ in a very clear voice.

“I know what it means, smart-ass. My point is, you find him attractive?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re the guy that said he could never be friends with someone you found attractive.”

“Okay,” Stiles huffs, chasing down the ball again. Goddamn, Scott’s gotten even worse since last week. “That’s true. But it’s different with Derek.”

“You’re sure you’re not having sex?” Scott asks doubtfully.

“Hey,” Stiles says, “Give me some credit here. This is big for me. I feel like I’m growing.”

“Excuse me!” Hollers a little boy who’s been playing baseball in the grass a hundred feet over. He gestures at his ball, which has rolled over to Stiles’ feet. “Can I _please_ have my ball?” He puts his hands on his hips.

“We’re talking here!” Stiles hollers back, but he throws him the ball anyway. “Little fucker,” he mutters under his breath.

“Stiles!” Scott exclaims, scandalized.

“What? He couldn’t hear me.”

Scott sighs. “You were growing?” He prompts.

“Right. I don’t know, it’s just nice. I can talk to him.”

“Hey,” Scott says, looking injured. His throw is a little harder than necessary. “You can talk to me!”

“I know, Scotty. It’s just like he understands it all, you know. I can talk to him about the women I meet, but he gets it about the guys that I see, too.”

“I listen to you talk about guys!”

“Yeah, but doesn’t it make you sort of uncomfortable?”

Scott shrugs. He tries very hard, which Stiles will give him. “It’s fine,” He says, but he looks a little squirmy.

“It’s just a different perspective,” Stiles says reassuringly. “Like, okay, I was telling him last week about this girl I took home? It was amazing. A whole ‘nother level. I actually made her meow.”

Scott pauses before he throws the ball back. “You made a woman meow?” He looks like he’s both impressed and a little worried.

“Yeah. Or this guy—”

“Did you make him bark?” Scott asks, grinning. He’s really not as funny as he thinks he is.

“No,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes, “But I think I may have seen the face of God.”

Now Scott just looks sort of awed.

“And I don’t have to lie to Derek about anything, because I’m not trying to fuck him. It’s great.”

“You made a woman meow?” Scott says again.

“Yeah. Hey, listen, I’m supposed to meet Derek for lunch. Five minutes ago. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Stiles leaves Scott standing in the middle of the grass, looking after him, and drives two blocks over to Stile’s favorite sandwich places. Where Derek is already parked in his favorite booth, because he is nothing if not punctual.

“Hey,” Derek says, when Stiles slides in across from him. He looks anxious.

The waitress comes over to take his order, and she must have already gotten Derek’s, because she looks at Stiles very warily. He orders his usual.

“So,” Derek says, nudging the salt shaker around with a knuckle. He’s not looking at Stiles, which is a sure sign that he’s nervous about something. “How do you handle going home with someone for just a night?” He asks finally.

“Derek, you dog. Did you get some action last night?!”

Derek looks profoundly uncomfortable. “No!” He exclaims. “I was just thinking about how you… I don’t know what you do. Do you just get up and leave?”

“Sure,” Stiles says. Derek grimaces.

“What do you say?”

“Oh, anything, really. Early meeting, early haircut,” The waitress comes back and puts their sandwiches down, along with a cup of coffee for Derek. “Early pickle ball game,” Stiles winks at him.

“You don’t play… pickle ball?”

“They don’t know that.”

Now Derek just looks exasperated. Stiles knows that he’s not familiar with one night stands, and aside from being a secret cuddler (which Stiles finds adorable), he’s also had the fear of God put into him by Laura about treating partners with respect. Not that Stiles doesn’t always receive sober consent from _his_ lovers, because he totally does, but he doesn’t feel the need to hang around all night, like Derek apparently does. Whatever. Stiles either does very serious, a la Lydia, or very casual, a la everyone else in his life, and for him, casual means never staying longer than absolutely necessary after sex.

“That’s disgusting,” Derek says, shaking his head.

“I can’t sleep at night,” Stiles agrees drily. Well, he can’t. But it’s not because of his one night stands.

“It’s a good thing we never got involved,” Derek says. “I would have just been somebody else that you would have gotten up and left at 3:00 in the morning to go… I don’t know, restring your tennis racket. And you don’t even play tennis.”

“Not that you would know that,” Stiles points out. “Hey, why are you upset about this? We just have different approaches to sex. Whatever.”

Derek shrugs.

“I don’t hear anyone complaining,” Stiles says, and winks again at Derek, who tightens his mouth.

“You leave before you could find out,” he says.

“Believe me, they have an okay time,” Stiles says. He takes a giant bite of his sandwich.

“How do you know.”

Stiles just winks again.

“Oh what, because they…” Derek waves his hand around vaguely.

Stiles mimics him in agreement and nods.

“How do you know,” Derek repeats.

“What, you think they’re faking orgasms?” Stiles asks. The lady at the next table over shoots him a dirty look and covers the ears of her teenage daughter, who rolls her eyes and starts texting.

“It’s possible,” Derek says, leaning back in his seat and looking smug. Stiles shakes his head emphatically.

“It is,” Derek insists, “Most women have done it at one point or another.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “I also take my fair share of men home,” he says.

Derek shrugs. “Men do it, too,” he says.

Now Stiles’ eyes bug out of his head. “What? No they don’t.”

Derek nods

“Have you?”

Derek shrugs.

“Why would anybody…?” He probably looks horrified, because who would miss out on the chance to have the real, genuine thing?

Derek shrugs again, which is very annoying. “Same reasons as women. You’re tired, you don’t want to make your partner feel bad, whatever.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, “But there’s… you know, evidence.”

“So you wear a condom,” Derek says, “And throw it out right away.” The lady who had been glaring at Stiles now glares at Derek. Her daughter laughs.

“Nope,” Stiles says, “No way. I refuse to believe it. Women, okay, maybe they fake it every once in a while. Not with me, of course, but maybe on occasion.” Derek raises one eyebrow. “But I cannot accept the fact that any of my male lovers have faked it. I would be able to tell.” He bites into his sandwich again, case closed.

Derek gives him a long, searching look, and sits back in his seat.

“Oh, God,” he says. His voice is a little breathy. Stiles looks up. “Ooh,” Derek says, and then honest to God _moans._ In the middle of a restaurant. “Jesus,” He says, breath coming quicker now, gasping for air.

“Uhh… Are you okay?” Stiles asks quietly. The people at the next table, the one with the annoying mom and her teenager, have turned around and are staring at Derek, mouths agape.

Derek doesn’t answer him. He moans again. He arches back in his seat, abs flexing through his tight shirt. He gasps a few times, breath catching on the ends of little grunts and moans. His hips make slow, languid circles, rising off the seat. He throws his head back. “Yes,” he hisses. His hips circle faster.

Almost everyone in the restaurant is staring at him now. A waitress has stopped in her tracks, tray of food forgotten. Not that Stiles would miss a minute of this. His mouth goes dry.

“Oh, God,” Derek moans again, his voice louder. He _slams_ a hand down on the table and grips the edge, knuckles white. His Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows. “Yes, yes, yes,” He grunts, hips thrusting now, snapping up into the air, faster and faster. If Stiles’ didn’t know any better, he would swear that Derek had a hand down his pants, fisting his cock…

Derek roars, head thrown back, hips still pumping into the air, slower, slower now. “Oh, God,” he groans, coming down. His voice sounds wrecked. Stiles spreads his legs a bit wider in his seat.

Derek takes a prim sip of his coffee, seemingly oblivious to all the eyes on him. Stiles blinks.

Slowly, everybody turns back around in their seats, still throwing Derek glances over their shoulders. Stiles is never going to be able to come here again.

The waitress stops off at the table next to them. The horrified mother is still horrified. The teenage girl is bright red, and won’t look anyone in the eyes. The wrinkled old woman sitting with them looks at Derek, speculatively. “I’ll have what he’s having,” she tells the waitress.

…

Stiles insists on coming with Derek to pick out a Christmas tree, even though Derek tells him that he doesn’t really see the point, since it’s so balmy in California at Christmas, and besides, he almost always goes to visit Laura. But then Laura calls and tells him that she’s bringing her family out to California this year, and Derek can’t bear to disappoint Cora, so he lets Stiles drag him off to the Christmas tree lot

Derek does most of the heavy lifting, but Stiles keeps the top of the tree from touching the ground and seems very proud of himself.

Stiles invites himself over for Christmas tree decorating, too, but Derek doesn’t really mind that either. He endears himself to Cora forever by reading her _Peter and the Wolf,_ and Derek has to admit that it’s nice to have someone to share looks with when Cora does something cute, or to look at him the way Jen used to when he lets Cora sit on his shoulders to put the star on the tree. Like he’s done something right. Besides, he knows that this is Stiles’ first Christmas without Lydia, that he’s still missing her desperately, and that even though he’s going to spend the actual holiday where he grew up, in Beacon Hills, with his dad, he needs some company for the rest of the holiday season. Laura teases him mercilessly about Stiles, but in a nice way. That’s just what Laura does.

Derek has a nice holiday, quiet, and Stiles texts him a _Merry Christmas_ at 12:01 AM.

He gets back into town on the 28th, the day after Laura’s family leaves, and tells Derek that his law firm is throwing a New Year’s Eve party. Derek is generally opposed to parties, because he doesn’t like trying to awkwardly talk to strangers, but Stiles looks nervous, so he agrees to go along. He’s pretty sure that Stiles is worried that Lydia will be there—even though she doesn’t work for the same law firm, they have several mutual friends—and that she will bring her new boyfriend

Derek knows that he wouldn’t have been asked to go if Scott wasn’t still up north with his mother, but it’s nice to be asked just the same.

He puts on the tux that Laura had made him buy for her wedding, and Stiles is wearing a neatly pressed charcoal grey three piece suit when Derek picks him up in a cab.

“I thought you’d bring the Camaro, James Bond,” Stiles teases him, but Derek wants to drink tonight, too.

He hovers awkwardly around Stiles until about 11:30, watching while Stiles chats up strangers and acquaintances alike with ease. Lydia never shows, thank God. When Stiles says that he can’t stand Derek’s brooding anymore, he lets himself be pulled out onto the dance floor.

Derek hates dancing, and is bad at every kind that doesn’t involve Cora standing on his feet, but he’s had a couple of glasses of Champagne, so that helps.

Besides, Stiles’ idea of dancing is compatible with Derek’s, which means that they just kind of sway in circles holding each other, watching the more adventurous couples whirl circles around them. That’s what they must look like out here: a couple.

“I like you without your beard,” Derek tells him, because he’d shaved off the scruffy beard he’d been wearing since Lydia left when he was home on Christmas, apparently under the direction of his clean shaven cop father. “You can see your face.”

“I like you with a beard,” Stiles says back. Derek’s left his longer than normal, because it always makes Laura roll her eyes at him, long enough that it tickles instead of scratches and makes Cora laugh when he blows raspberries into her belly.

“I wanted to thank you for asking me tonight,” Derek says sincerely. He may not like parties, but his alternative was to sit at home feeling sad about another year flying by.

“Sure,” Stiles grins at him, and his eyes crinkle. “Hey, next time that we’re both single on New Year’s, you’ve got yourself a date.”

“Deal,” Derek says, grinning back.

“Now we can dance cheek-to-cheek,” Stiles teases, pulling him close to do just that.

Stiles smells good, like aftershave, and he makes a quiet humming sound when Derek nuzzles his face in an extra bit. Derek closes his eyes.

They sway there for a while, before everybody starts cheering, and counting down from ten. When he pulls back to look at Stiles, he’s wearing a sort of panicked look that Derek would really love to not _actually_ have progress into a full blown panic attack. He knows Stiles is hating not having anyone to kiss at midnight.

“Hey,” he says, pulling Stiles out of the ballroom by his wrist, “Let’s get some air.”

They hit the doors just as people are chanting ‘Happy New Year!’ And somebody immediately starts playing “Auld Lang Syne.” It’s not cold out, but it’s cool and refreshing, and Stiles looks better out here, taking big gulps of air in. They watch the other couples embracing and cheering. He’s looking at Derek sort of expectantly, but Derek’s not really sure what he’s supposed to be doing. Is Stiles looking for a kiss? He leans in slowly, just in case, but Stiles takes a step back, so Derek stands back upright. Then Stiles leans in, while Derek’s swaying back. Stiles grins, puts a hand on both cheeks, and holds Derek still while Stiles pecks him on the lips.

It’s soft and quick and dry.

“Happy New Year’s,” Stiles says a little awkwardly, shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks away.

“Happy New Year’s,” Derek echoes.

…

_“Well, he was the head counselor at the boy’s camp, and I was the head counselor at the girl’s camp. And they had a social one night, and he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend, Maxine, ‘cause people were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine. But he was coming to talk to me. And he said—”_

_“I’m Ben Small, of the Coney Island Smalls.”_

_“At that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.”_

…

“You sent flowers to yourself,” Derek says dully.

Allison laughs. “This huge bouquet. I spent like thirty dollars on this thing, just hoping that Isaac would see it and be… I don’t know, jealous, I guess. I even wrote a card.”

“Which said?”

“‘Please say yes. Love, Jonathan.’” Allison looks embarrassed. Well, good. That’s why Derek’s dragged her out here tonight.

“And?”

“Never even saw it,” She sighs, “He didn’t come over. Something came up with his wife. I don’t think he’s ever going to leave her.”

“Of course he isn’t,” Derek agrees.

“You’re right, I know you’re right.” They walk another half a block, Allison still frowning. “Where is this place, anyway?”

“The next block,” Derek says vaguely. Stiles had picked it out.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Allison says.

“Hey,” Derek says, taking her by the arms and looking her in the eyes, “Stiles is one of my best friends. You’re one of my best friends. If you hit it off…” He shrugs. “We can be friends without drifting apart the way you do when you get involved with someone who doesn’t know your friends.”

“We haven’t drifted apart, and I’ve been seeing Isaac,” Allison points out. Derek wants to give her a little shake, but he doesn’t

“If he left his wife,” He says for the third time in as many hours, “And if I ever _actually_ met him, I’m sure we’d drift apart.”

Allison just sort of shrugs. She doesn’t believe him, but she’s here tonight, which is a big step in the right direction.

They start walking again. “Are you going to be okay?” Allison asks him, “I mean, this friend of his, Scott, is he even…” She grimaces. “I mean, is he interested in men?”

“Stiles says that he hasn’t been in the past but that he’s _open_ to trying new things. Look. I don’t have big expectations for tonight, okay? I’m here to support you and Stiles. I think you could really hit it off.”

…

“So…” Allison says. Stiles takes a gulp of water. Across the table, Scott and Derek’s conversation seems to be going equally well.

Not that Stiles had expected much, after the walk over here, with Scott panicking the whole way.

(“I mean, he knows this is new to me, right? And I _am_ open, I really am. I’ve never been on a date with a guy before, though. It is going to be weird? I mean, I don’t want him to be offended by me. Do you think he will be? I mean, you told him not to expect much, right? But I don’t want him to think that I don’t like him, just because he’s a guy. I mean, I’m totally fine with guys liking other guys. I just don’t know if I’m one of them? Do you think he’ll hate me?”)

Stiles had finally told him that he was just there for moral support for Stiles on his date, since he hadn’t dated a girl seriously since before Lydia, and he had already promised Derek he wouldn’t take home his friend tonight, so he’s under a lot of pressure. It’s not entirely true, because Stiles _had_ promised Derek a date, but it made Scott stop quivering like a scared puppy.

He feels bad for Derek right now, though. He knows that he hates making conversation with a stranger more than almost anything else, and Scott, who can usually hold his own, is so afraid of offending Derek that he hasn’t said more than hello to him all night.

There’s a long, awkward silence. Crickets probably chirp somewhere. Derek throws him a desperate glance.

Stiles throws him one right back.

“So, Allison,” Derek says, “Stiles’ father is a cop, too.” Wow. Voluntarily making small talk. That’s personal growth.

“Oh, really?” Allison says, perking up. She is very pretty. “Where?”

“Beacon Hills, where I grew up,” Stiles says. “He’s the Sheriff.”

“Wow,” Allison nods, “Cool.”

Everyone looks down at their empty plates.

Stiles slurps his water, loudly. “So,” he says, “What are we gonna order?”

“I think I’ll have a salad,” Derek says. God bless him.

“You should see Derek order,” Stiles informs Scott, but when Derek shoots him a glare, he just finishes lamely, “He’s a really good orderer.”

Scott looks at him like he’s insane, which is understandable, because what is a ‘really good orderer,’ even?

He smiles at Allison. She just sort of stares at him.

“Well, I can never choose,” She says after a beat, “There’s always so many options.”

Scott perks up. He’s the one that takes forty minutes to pick an appetizer and then agonizes the whole way through dinner that he picked the wrong one. “I know exactly what you mean!” He says.

Allison smiles at him, with dimples that have never made an appearance for Stiles. He looks at Derek and shrugs.

“So, does your police force have dogs?” Scott asks her.

“Well, we have a K-9 unit, but I don’t work with them. I have a dog, though. Arrow.”

“Wait,” Scott says, “He isn’t a German Shepard, is he? Like three years old?”

“Yeah!” Allison says, “Wait…”

“I think I did surgery on him, six months ago?”

“You work with Dr. Deaton!” Allison exclaims, “That’s totally Arrow! What a crazy coincidence!”

They’re off like a rocket.

Derek and Stiles sigh in harmony.

…

“Oh, hey, Derek,” Allison says meaningfully as they walk back from dinner, “Didn’t you say you were looking for a new dress shoe?” She drags him by the sleeve over to the window display. Derek is sure that it’s very subtle, maybe to someone completely blind.

“So,” She says when she’s parked him out of hearing of Stiles and Scott, “How did you think tonight went? I mean, are you going to ask Scott out?”

“Uh…” Derek says.

“Because, I mean, I totally won’t if you liked him, but I felt sort of comfortable with him? Do you think I could call him?”

Considering the way her dimples had been present and accounted for since the salad course and the way she’d been bumping elbows with Scott walking down the street, Derek is not exactly surprised.

“Of couse,” he says, “No, I didn’t think we really hit it off. Hey, I’m a little worried about Stiles, though? He’s just sort of vulnerable right now. I think it would be fine, just… maybe wait a few days?”

“Oh, sure,” Allison says, and then kisses him on the cheek, “Great!”

Derek looks over her shoulder, to where it looks like Scott and Stiles are finishing a similar conversation.

Allison must work some crazy seduction magic with her eyes, because as soon as they reconvene, Scott says hastily, “I don’t really feel like walking anymore. I think I’ll catch a cab!”

He hails one driving by, and Allison says, “Oh yeah, me too!” And climbs in after him.

Derek and Stiles watch them go.

…

_“A man came to me and said, ‘I found nice girl for you. She lives in the next village, and she is ready for marriage.’ We were not supposed to meet until the wedding. But I wanted to make sure. So I sneak into her village and hide behind a tree, watch her washing the clothes. I think if I don’t like the way she looks, I don’t marry her. But she looked really nice to me! So I said, ‘Okay,’ to the man. We get married. We’re married for fifty-five years.”_

...

FOUR MONTHS LATER

…

“Stiles,” Derek says, for the fourth time, because he’s boring, “We’re here for Scott and Allison.”

“I know!” Stiles replies, also for the fourth time. It’s not his fault he gets distracted in a store like this, with beautiful machines everywhere. He was almost a computer science major, after all. He examines the price tag on the laptop he’s had his eye on sadly. It’s _way_ too expensive for him.“We’ll find something. There’s great stuff here!”

Derek rolls his eyes. The pretty lady in the ugly button up shirt on all 50 of the giant show TV screens behind him is talking about the merits of toothpaste.

“I still think we should just go to the nursery and get them a tree,” Derek says. Because Derek has the level of excitement of a plant. But this is Scott, Stiles’ best friend from infancy, and he’s finally found his dream girl, and now they’re moving in together. Scott deserves more than a tree. Scott deserves something sleek and electronic! Stiles just has to keep reminding himself that _he_ deserves to eat this month, or he’ll overspend by about two-hundred percent.

“Ooooh!” Stiles says, pointing at a totally awesome smart watch in the next aisle over. A Best Buy employee gives him a dirty look, and then Derek one, like Derek’s failing in his babysitting duties, or something. Rude. Stiles ignores her, and tells Derek, “We have to get this for them. They could share! It tracks fitness and takes video…”

“It’s totally unneccesary,” Derek says, but it doesn’t matter, because Stiles has already seen something even better…

“Oh. My. God. I haven’t seen one of these in years! It’s perfect!” He walks, not runs—so there, snooty store lady—to the Karaoke machine that’s practically glimmering in front of them, as if to say, _here I am! The perfect gift!_

“What? No, Stiles!” Says Derek, but Stiles already has pressed the power button, and God be good, the machine’s plugged in.

“Paging Derek,” he says in his best radio announcer voice, “Derek Hale, please report to three feet in front of you.”

For some reason, the CD in the player seems to be a collection of the greatest musical numbers of all time, and when Stiles presses play, the bright opening strains of “Surrey With a Fringe on Top,” starts blaring.

“Derek, it’s from _Oklahoma!_ ” he says, voice booming across the entire store, “That’s your favorite!” Derek glares at him and crosses his arms. The little screen on the front of the machine starts counting down the last measure.

Stiles starts singing, and he knows that Derek’s trying very hard to maintain a straight face, but when Stiles starts adding actions, it’s all over for him.

Stiles shoves the microphone in his face.

And Derek doesn’t really sing, but to his credit, he sort of mutters the right words in the vicinity of the microphone. He keeps looking around like he’s afraid that someone will see him like this, even though Stiles has personally seen him do embarrassing things in public before. Like fake an orgasm, for example. He doesn’t have a great voice, but Stiles has to admit that he’s charmed that Derek’s playing along at all.

And then he’s abruptly less charmed when a familiar head of strawberry blonde hair swings around the corner.

_No. Nonononono, this is not happening right now._

Everything seems to go sort of fuzzy in his ears, and all he can hear over the muffled sounds of Derek mumbling about brown upholstery and genuine leather in the background is the click of Lydia’s signature heels on the tile floor.

She has a man on her arm, who looks like he could be the cover of GQ, or something. _Christ._

“Stiles?” Derek says, finally noticing that Stiles has gone slack-jawed beside him and is staring at the single most beautiful woman to ever grace California with her presence. A woman who has left him, and clearly upgraded. “What’s wrong? Is it my voice? Oh, God. I know it’s awful. Laura always said…” He asks, but he’s still holding the microphone up to his lips, so now the whole store knows that there’s about to be a _Dramatic Scene, Aisle 3._

Stiles reaches behind him and sort of bats a hand at Derek until he stops speaking. He _wants_ to look away from Lydia, but he can’t. It’s like watching a car wreck, because all he can do is just watch her walk towards him, standing there powerless to do anything except let his heart be broken. Again.

“It’s Lydia,” He chokes out.

“Lydia?” Derek says, still with the _goddamn microphone,_ and Stiles finally wrenches it out of his hand and then fumbles unseeingly for the power switch on the machine and kills all the music blaring through the speakers.

Which may actually be worse, because now it’s just silence, and Lydia’s voice.

“Hello, Stiles,” she says sweetly. “How are you?”

He knows he’s just staring at her, but he can’t, for once in his life, seem to find any words. Lydia’s boyfriend is staring at him like he’s insane, and Derek nudges Stiles with an elbow.

“Fine,” he says automatically, jolted out of silence, even though he’s _so far from fine,_ “I’m just fine.”

He doesn’t ask how Lydia is. He doesn’t want to know.

“This is Jackson Whittemore,” She says, looking at Jackson fondly and taking his hand.

“Hey,” Jackson says. He gives one of those horrible, douchey half nods with his head.

Lydia looks at him significantly, and Stiles can’t figure out why, until her eyes drift over to Derek. And then down, over his biceps and his pecs and his abs… Which is totally not fair, because Lydia clearly already has all the eye-candy she needs. Stiles gets to keep his, thank you very much.

“This is Derek Hale,” He blurts, too fast, but he can’t help it. His heart is racing and his hands are sweating and he knows he’s on the verge of a panic attack, but he refuses to let it happen. He has too much dignity to let Lydia see him like that now, over her, more than a year after she left. The fact that she’s the only one in the world besides his father or Scott who knows how to help talk him down would only add insult to injury, for Derek and this Jackson guy to have to watch his ex-wife put him back together after so expertly taking him apart.

“Hi,” Derek says quietly, and his nod is a proper, full one, thank God.

Lydia’s face is almost grudgingly impressed. Stiles thinks that she probably is under the impression that he and Derek are together. Well, good. Yes, Stiles totally _could_ land a man as hot as Derek. A man better looking than _Jackson Whittemore,_ thank you very much.

“Well,” Lydia says abruptly. Derek probably raised his eyebrows menacingly at her. Stiles doesn’t know, because his eyes are still glued to Lydia, against all logic, but the look Lydia is wearing is the look most people get when Derek glares at them. “See you.”

Stiles never wants to see her. “Sure,” he lies. “Bye.”

Derek waits until they’re out of earshot before he lays a gentle hand on Stiles’ elbow, and says, “You’re okay?” In a soft, concerned voice. Sure, now he’s subtle.

“Yeah,” Stiles says robotically. He’s still staring straight ahead of him, looking for the impression that Lydia left in the air. It’s not there, of course. “God, she looked weird, didn’t she?” She didn’t. She looked beautiful.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”

“She looked weird,” Stiles says again, to preserve his dignity. He thinks there are tears in his eyes. “Like… Her ankles are swollen or something.”

“Sure,” Derek says amicably.

They go to the nursery and get a tree. Derek only props him against the side of the building and helps him breathe, in and out, in and out, two separate times. That’s not so bad.

…

“You sure you’re okay?” Derek asks, juggling a Ficus. Or at least, he thinks it’s a Ficus. He’d picked it out by himself, since Stiles is still wearing a sort of frightening thousand-yard stare, and he’s no botanist.

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, it was bound to happen eventually, right? Who was I to think that I could live comfortably in a huge city and never have to see my ex-wife again? So it happened and now it’s happened. It’s done.”

He walks away, leaving Derek to trail after him with the dumb tree. At least he’s going to see Scott. Scott always seems to help.

Except when they reach the brand-new apartment that Allison and Scott had bought, just the two of them, they’re in the midst of an argument over a frankly hideous rug with the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon on it.

“What?” Scott’s saying defensively, “I like it!”

“Fine,” Allison sighs. She throws Derek a desperate look. “We can let Derek and Stiles decide! Guys?”

“I like it,” Stiles says quietly. Derek thinks that at least three-quarters of his brain is still back in that stupid store with Lydia, which excuses this otherwise horrendous lapse in judgment.

Allison’s eyes widen. If this rug somehow makes it through the afternoon intact, Derek has no doubt that it will very soon have a tragic accident with the messiest food that Allison can find. Whatever that might be.

“Derek?” Allison begs. He wrinkles up his nose and shakes his head emphatically.

“But what’s the matter with it?” Scott protests.

“It’s just awful,” Allison says patiently. Derek suspects that this is not the first time they’ve had this discussion today. “There’s no way to describe it.”

“But I don’t mind any of your things!” Scott says, “That crossbow you want to mount on the wall?”

“It’s a family heirloom! Look, if we had an extra room, I would be more than happy to have you put your things in it. This rug, or your pull-up bar—”

“You don’t like my pull-up bar? Stiles!” Scott turns for assistance, but Stiles is slumped up against the wall, gazing out the window forlornly. “You’re on my side, right?”

“Honey, I’m on your side,” Allison placates, stroking a hand down Scott’s arm. He sort of droops under her touch, like just her presence is draining the tension out of him. _Jesus._ “I just want this place to be in good taste, that’s all! Our first place together?”

“I have good taste,” Scott says, but he sounds unsure.

Stiles turns from the window now, and he’s wearing a bitter smile. “Lydia and I started out like this,” He says conversationally, “We had an empty apartment. We had arguments about décor. Which Lydia won all of, by the way. We picked couches. We hung things. And you know what happens?” His cheeks are flushed, and his voice raised, “Six years later, there you are, singing fucking “Surrey With a Fringe on Top” in front of _Jackson Whittemore!!!_ ”

Allison and Scott, frozen, look sort of carefully at Derek. Scott makes to move forward, but Stiles turns back around and shoves a hand through his hair.

“Um, Stiles,” Derek says, “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this?”

“No,” Stiles says, turning on Derek, “I think this is exactly the right time to talk about this. I want my _best friend_ to benefit from the wisdom of my experience. Scott,” He says. Scott’s eyes get wide, and Allison looks horrified. “Scott, I know you’re in love, and that’s wonderful. Right now. You’re happy, for right now. That’s great!”

“Stiles,” Scott begins, but Stiles is really on a roll now.

“But in years, or months, you’re going to be screaming at each other over who gets this plate!” He picks up a ceramic plate, and waves it in the air. Derek’s afraid that he’s going to smash it on something. “It’s an $8 plate that will cost you $1000 in legal fees!”

Allison begins to protest, but it’s useless.

“Look,” Stiles says. He’s calmer now, or looks that way, but his hands are trembling and his face is still flushed. “Just, do me a favor, okay? Just put your names in all your books right now. Someday, believe it or not, someday you’ll go fifteen rounds over who’ll get this goddamn rug!” He’s screaming again now, even louder. He looks frightening, a little unhinged. “This ugly-ass wolf rug!!!” He picks up his jacket and storms towards the door.

“Hey, I thought you liked it!” Scott calls. Allison and Derek turn to glare at him.

“I was being nice!” Stiles bellows. The front door slams behind him.

There are several moments of pregnant silence, and then Derek says, “He just saw Lydia.”

Understanding dawns on Scott and Allison’s faces.

“I’ll go,” Derek sighs, and grabs his own jacket.

…

By the time Derek catches up to him, he’s halfway down the street. He’s not even wearing his jacket, which dangles over his arm uselessly. He feels too hot with frustration. First he fucked up his own relationship so badly that seeing his ex-wife sends him into fits of fury, and now he’s well on his way to destroying his best friend’s, too.

“Stiles,” Derek calls. He’s not even out of breath, even though he’s been jogging, damn him. He’s wearing his jacket, Stiles notices. It’s that dumb leather one, probably the same one that he was wearing eleven years ago on that road trip. He’s still wearing those dumb glasses, too. Stiles absolutely cannot handle this right now.

At least Derek doesn’t ask him if he’s okay again. That might actually be the last straw. He just sighs, and looks at Stiles seriously.

It’s enough to nip his anger at Derek chasing him right in the bud, because he knows he’s in the wrong here, okay? He knows he overreacted and took out his emotions on innocent bystanders. “I know,” He tells Derek, scuffing at the sidewalk with his shoe, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Stiles’ goodwill is instantly killed when Derek opens his stupid mouth and says, “Stiles, you really have to work on finding a way of not expressing every emotion you have every second that you have it.” Which is not only rude, but also unfair, considering that if he expressed every emotion he had, he’d have ended up sobbing in a ball at Lydia’s feet back in that store. Which he didn’t.

“Oh, really?” Is all Stiles comes up to in retort to that, which is disappointing, because Stiles can be a Grade-A Asshole, especially when he’s upset, and right now he’s angrier than he has been maybe since the day that Lydia actually left him, before he just got sad and resigned.

Derek just nods seriously. And fuck him, because who exactly does he think he is to be doling out advice on emotions? The Amazing Robot Who Speaks, who’s never had a reaction to anything more emotional than eating toast in the morning?

“Well, great. The next time you’re giving a lecture series on social graces, just let me know. I’ll be there.” Stiles spits. His voice is appropriately scathing, and it doesn’t wobble at all. Stiles is proud of himself for that.

“Hey,” Derek says. His voice is harder now than when he was trying to appease Stiles, before, but even now he doesn’t sound angry. Which is just fucking classic. “Don’t take your anger out on me.”

“Oh, I think I’m entitled. Especially when I’m being told how to live my life by the goddamn Tin Man!”

“What?” Derek says icily.

“Nothing bothers you!” Stiles cries. He feels another rush of righteous anger, which is just the way he wants it. It lets him say the things he’s never said before. “You’re never upset about anything! I never see you upset about Jen! Aren’t you experiencing anything? How is that possible?”

“I don’t have to take this from you,” Derek says tightly, and turns to go back to Scott and Allison’s apartment, but Stiles steps around him. He knows that was a low blow. He knows that Derek struggles with relating and communicating with people and is self-conscious about his emotions, but he just doesn’t care. The words just keep coming.

“If you’re as over her as you seem to think you are,” Stiles taunts, “Why aren’t you seeing anybody? Have you slept with one person since you broke up with Jen?”

And then Derek sort of… explodes. It might actually be sort of majestic if it weren’t so terrifying, but it is, because Derek’s absolutely huge, and seems bigger when he’s towering over Stiles. Stiles has never seen him like this, so angry. He’s a force of nature.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” He growls. His face is inches from Stiles. “You think that would prove that I’m over Jen, if I _fuck_ somebody?” He takes a few deep breaths and then starts walking quickly back, but Stiles, who clearly has no sense of self-preservation, grabs his elbow.

“Hey—” He starts, sorry now that this is happening, because he knows he deserves Derek’s reaction, and probably worse. He’s sorry that he’s pushed Derek so far, to take him to this level of emotion that is clearly foreign and uncomfortable for him.

“What?” Derek snaps, “Stiles, I don’t see any of the hundreds of people you’ve _fucked_ turning Lydia into a faint memory for you.” Stiles is quiet. He can ride this out. He can fix this. He hasn’t broken this, not yet. “Besides,” Derek says, calming now, but still breathing heavily, “I would rather _make love_ to somebody, not fuck them the way you do, like you’re out for revenge, or something.” He looks at the sidewalk, seeming ashamed, like _he_ has something to be sorry for.

“Are you finished?” Stiles asks. If he’s not, Stiles can take more. He will, if Derek needs to say it.

“Yes,” Derek sighs.

“Can I say something?”

Derek looks wary, but nods anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, pulling Derek in by the wrist, “God, I’m so sorry.” He _falls_ into Derek’s arms, burying his nose in Derek’s neck, where he smells of leather and aftershave. He feels Derek’s arms band around him, tightly, and it helps. Stiles feels like he could put himself back together here, in Derek’s arms.

When he stops shaking, he leads Derek back to the apartment by the hand. They see Scott on the way, throwing the wolf rug out on the curb. Neither of them says a word.

…

Allison and Scott invite their small group of friends over for a belated housewarming party when they finally finish unpacking, almost a month after they moved in. Derek debates about bringing a guest. He knows Kira will bring her fiancé, and Scott and Allison will be there together, of course. He’s been seeing Erica, a blonde bombshell he met at the gym, for almost three weeks now, and while he won’t say that they’re perfect together, she’s the most serious that he’s been about anyone since Jen left. He hears that Stiles is bringing a date, some guy he’s been seeing, when he and Allison have coffee the day before the party.

He decides to ask Erica along. It’s a little early for her to meet the friends, but he certainly doesn’t want to be the only one there alone. Now that Scott and Allison are together, everything Allison does is a couple event.

They play Pictionary. Derek is a worse artist than he is a singer, and Laura once told him that when he sang in the shower, all the neighborhood dogs started howling along.

They make Derek draw ‘Baby Talk.’ His team loses. In his defense, they weren’t particularly engaged: Scott kept guessing totally bizarre and completely unrelated phrases ( _baby fish mouth?_ ) And Stiles and his date, Danny, spent the whole game making eyes at each other.

“I’m an awful artist,” Derek sighs to Erica.

“No,” she says, but not entirely convincingly, “That’s a baby, and that’s a mouth. That’s talking. Obviously.”

Stiles winks at him.

“I’m making coffee,” Allison announces, and Derek quickly volunteers to help, pointing Erica to the bathroom. She doesn’t drink coffee.

“So,” Derek says, watching Allison scoop grounds into the top of the coffee maker, “Danny, huh?”

“He seems nice, doesn’t he?” She asks, smiling. Danny’s dimples give hers some healthy competition.

“I guess,” Derek hesitates. He hasn’t spoken to Danny. He just doesn’t like him.

“He took us all to a 49s game the other day,” Allison says as the coffee machine rumbles.

Derek frowns. “Stiles doesn’t like football,” he says.

Allison just shrugs. “Erica seems… cool?” Derek thinks she’s a little put off by the leather jacket and red lipstick combination that Erica’s sporting for the evening.

Derek hums, and the coffee maker beeps. “I’ll tell them it’s ready, so they can fix their own,” he says.

Derek ushers Kira and Erica into the kitchen and sets off to find Scott and Stiles, who have sequestered themselves in the den.

“—Erica?” He hears Stiles say when he approaches the half open door. He pauses in the hallway.

“She’s actually really great,” Scott says enthusiastically, “You should talk to her, get to know her. I think you’d get along really well.”

“What does she do?” Stiles asks dubiously.

“Oh, she owns that little tea shop? The one I was telling you about before?”

“But Derek thinks tea is an affront to human nature,” Stiles says, now sounding confused, “He drinks black coffee like it’s necessary to life itself.”

Which is true, even if Erica doesn’t know his true feelings about tea, yet.

Derek doesn’t knock on the door, or tell them that everyone’s in the kitchen. Derek goes back to the kitchen himself, and has a cup of coffee.

…

The phone rings at 11:39. Stiles is having a good night, which means that he’s contemplating going to bed in two hours, instead of four.

“Yeah,” He says lazily when he answers without looking to see who’s calling. He’s channel surfing, trying to find something besides horribly reality TV or overdramatic cop shows to watch.

“Are you awake?” Derek asks. His voice sounds weird. Tight.

“Yep,” Stiles says.

“Could you come over?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, already sliding out of bed to find his shoes, “Hey, Derek, what’s wrong?”

“She’s getting married,” he says, and then hangs up.

By the time Stiles finds a parking spot for his jeep, he has two more missed calls from Derek. He’s not crying or anything when he opens the door, but he’s definitely not in good shape, either. He looks paler than usual, and his mouth is set in a hard line.

“Hi,” He says, through a clenched jaw.

“You alright?” Stiles asks.

“Come in,” Derek says, which Stiles takes to mean ‘no.’

“Sorry to call you so late,” Derek says, totally unnecessarily, since Stiles is always up until at least 1 o’clock.

“It’s fine,” Stiles says reassuringly, hanging his jacket up. “Can I get you something?”

Derek’s just sort of breathing heavily, and every once in a while he sniffs, but there aren’t any tears. Stiles walks him to the bedroom and sits him down on the end of the bed.

“She called me,” Derek says. He’s staring straight ahead, which happens to be Stiles’ naval, at the moment. “‘Just wanted to see how you were,’ ‘Fine, how are you,’ ‘Fine,’ Everything’s fine, all formalities, stupid stuff… And I’m sitting there thinking, I’m over her, I really am. And that’s when she says, ‘I’ve got some news, I wanted you to hear from me first.’”

“Yeah?” Stiles encourages after several moments, reaching to stroke down Derek’s shoulder.

Derek takes several deep, quick breaths, holding back tears, and then drops his head into his hands and says, muffled, “His name’s John. They work together.”

Stiles sits on the bed, and wraps an arm around Derek. He tugs until Derek sits up and collapses against him, wet nose on Stile’s neck.

“They just met,” he chokes, “He’s supposed to be the rebound guy. He’s not supposed to be the one!”

Stiles doesn’t say anything about the tears he feels on his collarbone. He just keeps rubbing down Derek’s back soothingly, making the same shushing noises his mother used to when he would cry to her.

“All this time,” Derek says, and Stiles can barely understand him, his face is turned so far into Stiles’ chest, “I was saying she just didn’t want to get married. But it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to marry me.”

“Oh, no,” Stiles says. There’s nothing else to say.

“She didn’t love me.”

“Would you take her back?” Stiles asks, and it’s enough to get Derek to jerk his head upright and stare at him accusingly with red-rimmed eyes.

“No!” He says. “But why didn’t she want to marry me?”

“Oh, no,” Stiles says again. He’s so horrible at this. Derek flops backwards, hands over his face, and Stiles squirms back to lay with him, gets an arm around him again and pulls him close.

“What’s the matter with me?” Derek whispers.

“Nothing,” Stiles protests, carding his fingers through Derek’s hair.

“I’m non-communicative,” Derek says.

“You’re quiet,” Stiles offers.

“I’m too closed off.”

“But in a good way?”

Derek rubs at his eyes. “I drove her away.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Stiles says. He should never be trusted with emotions, especially other people’s. Allison would be so much better at this. He thinks his shirt’s probably covered in snot, but that’s okay. He didn’t like this one much, anyway.

Derek’s silent, breathing shakily into Stiles’ chest. Stiles kisses his head, his forehead, down his cheek. A chaste peck on the lips.

“You want me to make some coffee?” Stiles asks.

“No, stay,” Derek says, and pulls him back in with a warm hand on the back of his neck, kisses him again, and then again, opening his mouth against Stiles’ and licking his way inside with long, hot strokes.

Stiles stays.

…

When Derek wakes up, Stiles is wearing his pants and a very panicked expression.

“Hi,” he says, clutching his shirt to his chest.

“Where are you going?” Derek asks him. Stiles gulps, and then pulls on his shirt.

“I gotta go,” he says dully. _Shit_.

“Where?” Derek asks. He hopes to God that Stiles doesn’t say that he has an early polo match to get to, or some other bullshit. He deserves that much, at least.

“I have to change before work,” He says instead, which is at least potentially truthful, since a glance at the clock shows it to be 7:30. “You have work, too,” he reminds Derek.

Something in Derek’s face must jolt him, because he adds, “But I’d like to take you to dinner after work? If you’re free?”

“Okay,” Derek says. He watches Stiles pull on his shoes over bare feet. He’s in such a hurry to get away from Derek that he can’t even be bothered to put on socks.

“I’ll text you,” Stiles says, straightening up.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Stiles repeats. He looks longingly at the door, and then leans over and gives Derek a dry kiss on the cheek, avoiding his gaze. He’s gone before Derek can even react to that. And sure, he was a mess last night. But he doesn’t need Stiles’ pity. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like one of Stiles’ other poor conquests.

He calls Allison as soon as he hears his apartment door slam shut, because he needs to hear her say that everything’s not fucked up, even though it would be a lie.

“‘Lo?” She says blearily. He’s probably just woken her up from a blissful night’s rest, spent snuggled close in the arms of her true love.

“Sorry to call so early,” He says, even though he’s not.

“It’s okay,” She says, sounding more alert now, but also alarmed. Derek hardly ever calls her, especially not at this hour. “Is everything alright?”

“I think I did something terrible,” he says. He’d thought maybe it would be alright, while it was happening, even afterwards, when Stiles went strange and distant. But he knows now that it’s not alright, and it may never be.

“What happened?”

“Stiles came over last night. Because I was so upset, after Jen called and told me she was getting married. I don’t know how… before I knew it, we were kissing… we did it.”

There’s furious whispering on the other end of the phone, and when Allison comes back on the line, she sounds thrilled, which is not exactly the reaction that Derek was hoping for. “That’s great!” She says. She sounds like she’s beaming. “You guys should have just done it in the first place. You belong together, it’s like… killing two birds with one stone!” Derek stays silent, because that’s what he was thinking last night, after it happened. He’s always been so stupid in love. “How was it?” She asks, when he doesn’t say anything.

“I… I thought it was good. But I guess it wasn’t.”

“Oh, Derek,” says Allison, sounding properly sympathetic now, “I’m so sorry. That’s the worst.”

“He just disappeared,” Derek says, feeling more and more humiliated the more he thinks about it, “I’m so embarrassed.”

“That’s horrible.”

Derek doesn’t say anything else. There’s nothing else to say—he ruined a perfectly good friendship, just because he was weak and stupid. He hears the mumbling of male voices in the background, and suddenly he’s terrified that Stiles is there, listening and laughing at him, so stupid for thinking that Stiles could ever be interested.

“Is someone there?” He asks.

“It’s… the weather man. On TV,” Allison says, but she sounds flustered, which means she’s lying. “Hey, do you want to come over for breakfast?”

Not with Stiles sitting across the table, trying to avoid his gaze, thinking of the words to let Derek down easy before he becomes clingy and creepy.

“I feel too awful,” He says, and it’s not a lie. He feels worse than he did last night, even, which is saying something.

“Good,” Allison sighs. “No, I don’t mean, good, I just… It’s just so early. Hey, I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Bye,” Derek says, picturing Allison and Scott curled up together in their happy warm bed, cooing at each other, promising that they’ll never again have to navigate their way out of situations like the ones that poor, clueless Derek gets himself into.

He calls in sick to work.

…

Stiles dials Scott as soon as he’s safely in his jeep. He’s never felt like a shittier person in his life, and in high school he had actually added ‘be an asshole’ to his mission statement.

He knows they shouldn’t have done it, knows he should have stopped it. But it was Derek, Derek who Stiles has been not-so-secretly lusting after for a decade, Derek who was kissing him like nothing else mattered, Derek who was looking at him with those beautiful, weepy eyes… and goddamnit, this is really bad. Stiles hasn’t gotten poetic about anyone in his life, ever, except for Lydia, and she is his One True Love. He’s not moving on from her, he can’t. The rest of his life will be filled with nothing except meaningless sex, and he’s fine with that. Except that Derek doesn’t do meaningless sex, and Stiles knew that, and he’s still the asshole who got up and left him lying in bed, looking sleepy and confused and hurt.

And they had been such good friends, too. Which just proves that Stiles had been right all along, and they should have never been friends. Because now they’ve just gone and ruined it with sex.

“Wha?” Scott says when he picks up on the seventh ring.

“I need to talk,” Stiles says miserably.

“What’s the matter?” Scott asks, instantly alert in the face of yet another one of Stiles’ crises.

“I went over to Derek’s last night. One thing led to another… we did it.”

Scott pulls away from the phone and says something to Allison, muffled. “Congratulations!” He says cheerily, “We’ve been hoping you would for months! It just makes sense.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, which is unusual to say the least, and Scott knows it. He’s more cautious when he asks, “How was it?”

“It was great, during,” Stiles admits, because it was. Derek acted like it was his whole goal to make Stiles fall apart, completely ignoring his own needs. Like he took comfort in making Stiles feel good. And Stiles had been wrong all those years ago, because Derek is fantastic in bed. Wonderful when he took Stiles in his mouth, breathtaking when he had slicked up his fingers and coaxed Stiles open. Perfect, when he had slid inside. Yeah, it had been great, during. It had been fucking phenomenal.

Which just makes how Stiles had reacted to the whole thing all the worse. When he had suddenly realized just what a massive mistake he had made fucking around with Derek, his best friend Derek, and then realized that it was probably anything but fucking around to him. And Derek had been lying against him with the sweetest look on his face, all fond and warm, stroking down Stiles’ bare side and brushing kisses across his chest, asking if he needed anything, trying to do anything to make him happy. And it’s not Derek’s fault that Stiles had shut down, or Derek’s fault that Stiles couldn’t find it in him to be happy no matter what Derek did, or that Stiles isn’t able to love anymore, but it’s just the way it is. “But then I felt… suffocated,” He says, struggling for words. He doesn’t know how to describe to Scott what had just happened. He can’t even figure out how he feels about it himself, not really.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Scott says, because he’s a good guy and he’s always on Stiles’ side, even when—especially when—Stiles doesn’t necessarily deserve it.

“I just bolted,” Stiles confesses, “I had to get out of there. I feel so bad.”

“I don’t blame you,” Scott assures him.

Stiles can hear Allison in the background, like she’s talking to someone. Did Derek slip out past Stiles, to talk to his best friend? Is he there right now, getting sympathetic looks from Allison? Stiles just can’t deal with the possibility of being faced with Allison’s disappointment, or Scott’s, when they hear from Derek what he did. How he ran because he’s a coward who couldn’t stand to see Derek hurt, just because Stiles was too weak to say no to something that was so obviously wrong for Derek, just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Not that Derek would blame him, of course. He probably thinks it’s all his fault, that he did something wrong, because Derek is a total martyr. That just makes Stiles feel worse.

“Who’s there?” He asks Scott.

“It’s just the news anchor,” Scott says hastily, but Stiles has known him since kindergarten. He knows when Scott’s lying. “Do you want to come over for breakfast?”

“No,” Stiles says miserably, “Maybe I’m coming down with something.” It’s a total lie, but he doesn’t want to see any of them right now, not Scott, not Allison, especially not Derek, if he’s there.

“Good,” Scott breaths, “I mean… Call me later, if you want.”

“Bye,” Stiles says.

He’ll just tell Derek that it was a mistake tonight. It’s the only way.

He just hopes that he doesn’t have to say it first.

…

By the time he’s slipped on his jacket to go to dinner, Derek’s resolved to just tell Stiles the whole thing was a mistake. He has no idea what else he’ll say, but at least then Stiles won’t feel the pressure to pretend to return feelings he clearly doesn’t have, or try to let Derek down gently, or something. Derek just hopes he can say it first, because he doesn’t know if his dignity can survive another blow, not after Jen’s call and Stiles’ hasty exit.

It turns out that Derek doesn’t have to worry about Stiles saying anything first, because he’s not saying anything at all. He doesn’t talk once, except to ask for their reservation and to order. Derek feels worse with every passing second, until halfway through the salad course he can’t take it anymore, and blurts, “It was a mistake.”

Stiles perks up right away. Expecting that reaction from him still doesn’t make it any easier to see. “I’m so glad that you think so, too,” he says, wearing a grin that’s a touch too cocky. It makes Derek sit back in his seat, trying to mask the hurt that he can practically _feel_ sliding onto his face.

Stiles sobers immediately. “I’m not saying that it wasn’t great,” He assures Derek. As if maybe Derek was worried because he thought that Stiles didn’t enjoy the sex. Derek already _knows_ that it was great. He was there, too, and the whole time that he was there, he was doing everything in his power to make it great for Stiles. He used every trick he knew and some he made up on the spot, and he knows it was _fucking great._ He knows that Stiles had been well satisfied, and more than once. There was no hiding the evidence there. Not that it wasn’t great for Derek, too, because even if he doesn’t covet Stiles’ lifestyle, he can’t deny that it certainly gave Stiles a vast amount of experience to draw on. Practice makes perfect, after all. It’s just that Derek had been the idiot that had thought, even for a second, that they might practice more together.

But that was before Stiles got this shell-shocked look on his face when Derek was trying to cuddle him through the afterglow, like he had seen things far more horrifying than Derek hopes his naked body is.

“It was,” Derek agrees woodenly. “We just shouldn’t have done it.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Stiles looks so relieved. _Fuck._

“I’m so relieved,” Derek says. Because he’s a masochist.

“Great!” Stiles laughs, and shoves a huge piece of lettuce in his mouth.

Derek follows his example, and they listen to each other chew for approximately five years.

“It is so nice when you can sit with someone and not have to talk,” Stiles finally says when they’ve worked through to their entrees in stony silence.

Derek smiles a smile that feels tight and dishonest.

…

“You know,” Stiles says thoughtfully, “Most of the time, you fuck somebody, and then you trade stories. But with Derek and I, we had already done that. So then what comes next?”

Scott throws him a hard look for using such language in a public park where there are children playing, but he just says, “Sure,” because he’s the best. Because he’s acting like he hasn’t already heard all of Stiles’ theories on why him and Derek hooking up was so weird four times apiece, every time he escapes from planning his own wedding.

Because apparently in Scott and Allison’s world, they were always destined to get married and didn’t need to bother with formalities like an engagement. But they are getting married, even though nobody, not even Stiles or Derek, knew about it until they received invitations in the mail. Because Scott and Allison are in forever love, in innocent and sweet and perfect love. It’s nauseating. They don’t even fight over anything more serious than that stupid wolf rug.

Scott listens to Stiles blather on anyway, even though his eyes looks sort of glazed over.

But it had been a little weird, after all. Or maybe it was just weird to Stiles, who hasn’t been to bed with anybody he knew beyond first or maybe last names since Lydia. He’s not used to not having to pause, for example, when Derek had turned his back to him to strip his shirt off, to ask what the tattoo was for. Because Stiles already knew all about that tattoo—Derek’s one act of youthful rebellion, which wasn’t actually that rebellious since he got it after his eighteenth birthday and it’s meant to represent his family, the same Celtic symbol that his Great-Grandmother had engraved on her wedding ring when she immigrated to New York with her new husband, a strapping young Hale. He didn’t have to stop to wonder about it, even, though he’s never seen it before, he and Derek not being the sort of people to run around with their shirts off. He could go straight to what he wanted to do, which was to trace that tattoo with his tongue.

He even already knew how Derek sounded when he came, for Christ’s sake, though Stiles has to admit that the real performance was even more impressive than the dress rehearsal he and everyone else in that deli had been treated to. And it had been real on Derek’s part, when they were together. He’d asked.

But Scott has already heard all of this before.

“Maybe,” Stiles says, posing his second favorite theory, “You can get to this point in a relationship where it’s just too late to have sex. You know?”

Scott just shakes his head.

…

“Is Stiles bringing anyone to the wedding?” Derek had managed to hold off the question for a whole fifteen minutes, which is five minutes longer than he had bargained on. That’s not too bad.

“I don’t think so,” Allison says distractedly, not looking away from the mirror, where she’s fluffing her veil. Derek had told her repeatedly that he was absolutely not the one she wanted with her when she went shopping for a wedding dress, that Kira would be much better, really, but she had told him that since he was the one standing up with her—another decision that he had protested—he had better do his maid of honor duties properly. So he’s here, slumped into the satin couch that’s designed for someone about half his height, ignoring all the salesladies who keep telling Allison how lucky she is that her fiancé is so invested in their wedding that he comes to _all_ of her fittings. She stopped correcting them three appointments ago.

“Is he seeing anyone?” Derek asks before he can think better of it.

Allison hums absentmindedly. “He was seeing this anthropologist,” She says and then shrugs, clearly indicating that it didn’t go anywhere. Well, of course it didn’t. Stiles is convinced that Lydia Martin was the great tragedy of his life and that he will never be recovered enough to see anyone else as more than a convenient lay. Derek included, apparently.

“What does she look like?” He asks, and hates himself.

“Thin, pretty, big tits… your basic nightmare.”

Derek emphatically _does not care_.

Allison turns from the mirror, smiling shyly. “Well?” She asks. Her veil is perfectly fluffed and her dress is perfectly fitted and the happiness on her face is blinding.

“Ally,” Derek says, which he hasn’t called her since she was eight. “You look so beautiful.”

She lets him hug her, even when he crumples up her dress.

…

Scott’s wedding is perfect, because Scott is perfect and Allison is perfect and their love is perfect and their lives will be perfect.

Allison’s dad looks like he might never let go of her arm when he walks her down the aisle, but he eventually pries himself free after a steely glare to Scott, and everything else is, of course, perfect.

Stiles ends up staring at Derek the whole time, because Allison insisted that she didn’t want any bridesmaids, just him. Stiles would have teased him about being the maid of honor, a month ago. He doesn’t now.

Derek almost smiles at him once, when Allison and Scott are exchanging dewey-eyed ‘I dos’. His lips quirk up a fraction of an inch, like his mouth starts to smile before his brain catches up, but then he schools himself back into his usual stone-faced expression.

It’s not fair. Derek was his best friend, almost as close as Scott. It’s been a month. Stiles needs all the friends he can get.

So he sidles up to Derek at the reception, because Derek is, of course, not dancing. He’s just standing on the side of the room, watching everybody from the shadows. If Stiles didn’t know how awkward he was around new people, it would be a little bit creepy.

He had seen Derek talking to a pretty girl that Stiles has met before, Kira, but then Kira had been swept off onto the dance floor herself, and now Derek’s standing alone again, looking stupidly handsome in that tux of his. It’s the same tux that he’d worn to that New Year’s Eve party with Stiles, the first night they had kissed. Stiles had gotten Derek to dance that night, too.

“Hey,” Stiles says.

“Hi,” Derek says curtly. So yeah. He’s still upset. Stiles could tell he’d been, that night in the restaurant, but he’d been naïve enough to hope that them both pretending that he wasn’t would somehow make things better. It clearly hadn’t though, and this isn’t Stiles’ first clue. He hasn’t even seen Derek since that silent dinner, only exchanged some exceedingly awkward text messages, which Stiles always initiated

“It was a nice ceremony,” Stiles offers. Small talk is his specialty.

“Beautiful,” Derek says, and Stiles remembers that small talk is not _Derek’s_ specialty.

“So, the holidays are rough,” Stiles says anyway.

“A lot of suicides,” Derek agrees, which is dark, but doesn’t really throw Stiles. He knew this already; his dad’s a cop.

“Are you seeing anybody?” Stiles asks, to lighten the mood. Of course it backfires spectacularly, because Derek turns to him with a face like thunder and grits out, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Why not?” Stiles demands, because he _does_ want to talk about this. Maybe he can make it better, somehow.

“I don’t,” Derek repeats, and turns to go.

Stiles follows him. “Why can’t we get past this? Is this gonna be with us forever?”

Derek turns on his heel and Stiles winds up with his nose about three inches from Derek’s, but he’s damned if he’ll back down now, at least not now that he’s finally got Derek talking.

“Forever?” Derek says, “It just happened!”

“Four weeks ago,” Stiles protests. In a normal four week period, he’s seeing six or seven people, and probably forgetting most of them. At least he has been, since Lydia, except for these last four weeks. He didn’t even have the heart to sleep with that hot anthropologist.But he figures if he can forget about at least the sex part with Derek, and vice-versa, then they can go back to normal.

But sex in Stiles time is clearly very different than sex in Derek time.

“You know how one year to a person is like seven years to a dog?” He explains, because he gets it, and he wants Derek to, as well. If he had only slept with one or two people, theoretically, in a year and a half, he could see how a month seems recent. But for Stiles, who has a much higher turnover rate, one month seems like several. But everything is going wrong, and now Derek’s furious.

“Is one of us supposed to be a _dog_ in this scenario?” He spits.

“Yes?” Stiles says hesitantly, because this is not going at all as planned

“Who is the dog?” Derek demands.

“You?”

“I am? I am the dog? _I_ am the dog.” Derek shakes his head and turns back to what he was doing before Stiles called him a dog, which was storming out of the room.

And Stiles, who, contrary to popular belief, does have some sense of self-preservation, does not intend to follow, until Derek turns and gives him a significant look, which Stiles translates to mean _come out here right now, you asshole, so I can yell at you some more without disrupting the beautiful nuptials of both our best friends._ But Stiles hasn’t had to translate Derek glares much recently, so he might be out of practice.

“If anyone is the dog,” Derek says icily when they’re somewhere more private, “You are the dog, Stiles. You are the dog. You want to just act like what happened didn’t mean anything?”

“No!” Stiles protests, “I’m not saying that it didn’t mean anything. I’m saying that it didn’t mean everything!”

“You knew that it meant something,” Derek says, and he’s still stiff, but his eyes look hurt, maybe, “I know you did, because as soon as it happened, you walked out.”

“I didn’t!” Stiles says, even though he did.

“Fine, you sprinted,” Derek scoffs.

“I thought we both agreed it was a mistake,” Stiles says, trying to be reasonable.

“Sure,” Derek says, nodding. “It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.” He stalks off again, through the doors that lead outside, and this time Stiles doesn’t need any prompting to follow him. He’s mad now, too.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Derek,” Stiles calls.

“Nothing,” Derek says. It’s chilly outside, but Stiles doesn’t feel it. He’s prickling hot with anger. “I don’t want anything from you.”

It’s the anger that makes him say, “Let’s just get one thing straight. I did _not_ go over there that night to sleep with you. That was not my intention. But you were so upset, and you looked at me with these teary eyes, and you told me to stay. _You_ did. What was I supposed to do?”

“Are you saying,” Derek says slowly, eyes narrowed, voice tight, “That you took _pity_ on me?”

“No,” Stiles says, backtracking now, because that’s not what he meant, that’s not—

“ _Fuck you,_ ” Derek snarls, and gives him a hard shove, and maybe he just doesn’t know his own strength, or maybe he’s more upset than Stiles could tell, but Stiles goes down _hard_ on his tailbone, hands scraping raw against the concrete.

Derek looks horrified, but Stiles doesn’t know whether it’s with himself or with Stiles. He doesn’t help Stiles up. He turns, fists clenched, and goes back inside.

And Stiles follows, because he has no choice. He’s the best man, he can’t miss the toasts at Scott’s wedding.

But he wishes he hadn’t followed, because Scott’s making the first toast, and it’s about him, and everybody’s looking as he sidles up, staying a careful few feet away from Derek, trying to hide his throbbing hands from all the interested gazes.

“To two people who are so important to Allison and myself,” Scott says, beaming at Stiles, not even suspecting, “And if either of us had found either of you even remotely attractive, we might not be here today. So, to Stiles and Derek!”

“To Stiles and Derek,” Everybody choruses, raising a glass.

Derek clenches his jaw. Stiles looks away.

…

The holidays are harder for Derek this year. No Jen, and no Stiles, and no Allison, since she and Scott are away on their honeymoon. And now, no Laura, because they’ve decided to vacation somewhere warm and tropical this year, so not only can Derek not escape to her house, he also won’t even be distracted at his own place.

He gets a Christmas tree by himself. He has no problem carrying it home, but he probably shouldn’t have even gotten it. He only gets it half decorated, and doesn’t even want to put the star on the tree himself, without Cora there to help him.

Stiles keeps texting him, but Derek’s not really sure what to do with that.He hadn’t been texting Stiles after their _night of no return,_ mostly because he wanted to give him his space and not be that guy who’s way too clingy after just one lay. He knows he’s not the only hook-up in Stiles’ life, either, not like Stiles was for him.

But now he can’t decide what to do. He’s still more hurt than he’d like to admit, both over what happened after they slept together and over what happened at Scott and Allison’s wedding. He misses Stiles, though, desperately. More than Jen, maybe.

 _Did you know that Christmas is the traditional season of groveling?_ Today’s message reads. _You should think about giving me a call. I’m more than happy to do the traditional Christmas grovel._

Derek clicks on the reply box, but can’t think of any words to put there.

Stiles calls him the next night. Derek has two missed calls when he gets out of the shower, and a text message that says, _Please pick up the phone, I’d really like to talk to you._ A third call comes in just a moment later, and Derek uses putting a shirt on as an excuse for not picking up. Stiles leaves a voicemail this time, and Derek listens to it immediately.

 _“Um, hi, Derek. So. You’re not picking up your phone. This leads me to believe that you’re either, A, not near your phone, B, holding it but don’t want to talk to me, or, C, near your phone and desperately want to talk to me but trapped under something heavy._ _So… if it’s A or C, you should call me back. Please? I’d really like to talk to you.”_

Derek throws the phone on his bed and goes to make dinner.

…

“So, obviously, he doesn’t want to talk to me.” Stiles says. Scott looks miserable, and Stiles can’t really blame him. His first day back from his magical honeymoon with his light-o’-love, and Stiles is already talking about Derek. “If he wants to talk, he’ll call. Or text. He has my number.”

Scott nods.

“I’m not going to bother him anymore. I’m done making a fool out of myself.” He’s not, though. He’s already planning his next phone call. He’s a little worried that this one might push him firmly over the edge of friend-who-is-legitimately-sorry-for-the-shitty-things-he-said territory, which he’s been gradually edging out of anyway, and right into crazed-stalker land. But so be it.

…

The next voicemail that Stiles leaves is of himself singing, which is what well and truly does it for Derek. The last time he heard Stiles sing was on the worst day of his life, when he saw Lydia for the first, and hopefully last, time post-divorce.

Derek returns the call before he can think better of it.

“Hi, hey, Derek,” Stiles says breathlessly, answering after the first ring, “I didn’t… I didn’t know you were by your phone.”

Derek nods, which of course Stiles can’t see.

“What are you up to?” Stiles asks. Derek thinks he’s aiming for casual, but he’s overdoing it.

“I was just on my way out.”

“Where are you going?”

He’s going to pick up some take out so that he can eat without having to be around people, but Stiles doesn’t need to know that. “What do you want?” He asks instead. He’s afraid of the answer.

Which turns out to be, “I just called to say I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Derek says softly. There’s silence on the line, and Derek’s flustered, unsure what to say. “I should go.”

“No, wait,” Stiles says. “Um… what are you doing for New Year’s? Were you planning on going to that party Scott and Allison were talking about? Because I thought I’d go, but I don’t have a date, and if you don’t have a date, you know, we always said that if neither of us had a date, we would go together, remember?”

His voice is hopeful. Derek bows his head. He could do this. He could go with Stiles. They could probably be friends again, someday. So Stiles doesn’t return his feelings, Derek can’t fault him for that. Derek could pretend, pretend that it doesn’t matter. Except… except no, Derek deserves more than that.

“I can’t do this anymore, Stiles,” He whispers, “I’m not your consolation prize.”

And he’s not. Derek doesn’t want to be with Stiles because Stiles couldn’t find anyone else. He doesn’t want to be a consolation prize, and he doesn’t want to be a second choice. He wants to be selfish. He wants to be _chosen_. And maybe he will find someone who could see him like that, someday. He doesn’t blame Stiles for feeling the way he feels, not at all. And maybe this really is all that Stiles can give right now. Derek doubts that, but maybe that’s true. But Derek doesn’t just have to accept that, either.

There’s nothing else to say, so he hangs up.

He goes to the party. He goes by himself.

…

New Year’s Eve finds Stiles sitting alone in his room, in the dark, watching the party in Times Square on time-delayed television. It’s only eleven o’clock, and everything about it is depressing.

Derek is probably at that party right now, the one that Stiles was too cowardly to go to. It helps Stiles a little to know that Derek’s probably as miserable as he is right now. Parties never have been Derek’s thing.

Stiles gives up on Times Square and puts some shoes on. The streets are completely empty, which unfortunately gives Stiles lots of time to think.

So he thinks about Derek, because he hasn’t thought of much else over the past few weeks. He imagines some poor woman at the party trying to make small talk, thinking that she can score a hot date—or at least a hot night—and instead being faced with Derek’s total inability to chat casually with strangers. That makes him smile, a little.

He thinks about Lydia, too, but then, he’s always thinking of Lydia.

Except for the fact that he hasn’t really thought about Lydia recently, has he? Not for quite some time now. He’s thought of her briefly, of course. In passing. He was married to her for five years, after all. But he hasn’t been dwelling like he usually does. He’s been so worried with the prospect of Derek hating him, or never talking to him again, that he’s completely forgotten to wallow in self-pity. For his _ex-wife,_ the woman who left him almost two years ago. The woman who, for all the good times in their marriage, had broken it to be with the man she had been cheating on Stiles with for God knows how long.

And sure, the Lydia thing is sad. It makes Stiles sad, and probably always will. But he hasn’t been pining, at least not over her. All of his master plans to recapture someone’s heart are revolving around Derek, now, and have been for months.

He’s moved on. Oh, Jesus. He’s moved so far on that he moved right onto Derek without even realizing.

He wants to talk to Derek now, right now. And not over the phone again, not where he can’t look Derek in the eyes and tell him what he’s figured out.

Because Derek wasn’t willing to settle for anything less than genuine feelings, and Stiles respects that. And maybe Stiles couldn’t give that to him before, but he can now. And sure, maybe he’s scared. Maybe he isn’t positive that he can do it, not yet, but he’s willing to give it his best try, and he wants his best try to be with Derek.

He can do this. He knows where this party is, he was invited. He can get there. If he’s lucky, he can get there in time to kiss Derek at midnight, to start his new year the way he wants to.

He just needs to tell Derek, that’s all. Everything will be okay if he can just make Derek listen to him, if he can just tell him…

He’s running now, has been for blocks without even knowing. The party’s close. Stiles will show up there sweaty and breathless, but that’s okay. He’s underdressed, but he doesn’t care. Derek won’t care, either, and then Stiles can just say it…

The other party goers give him strange looks, running into the hotel ballroom like a mad man, red-faced and panting, scanning the crowd for a set of broad shoulders. He needs Derek. Right now. He only has a few minutes before midnight, and he has to say it before midnight. He has to tell Derek that he lo—

He’s there, looking heartbreakingly handsome in a tailored suit. He’s clean-shaven. He’s arguing with Allison, pulling away from her, waving goodbye. Ducking his head to shoulder through the crowd, heading for the exit.

Then Derek sees him, and his face goes hard, but not before it’s open and vulnerable for just a split second, not before there’s a flash of hope in those lovely eyes.

It’s the hope that Stiles clings to.

“Derek,” he says pleadingly, and he just needs to say it, and that’s: “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.”

But Derek’s not smiling at him like he’s supposed to, he’s not reaching for him and tucking Stiles close into him where Stiles belongs.

He looks hurt, instead. “What?” He says.

“I love you,” Stiles repeats, because he has to make him understand. This has to work. He’s got nothing else to offer, nothing but this.

“How to you expect me to respond to this?”

But Stiles doesn’t know how to respond to this, himself. It didn’t go this way, in his head. “How about you love me, too?” He says, desperate. He’s begging.

Derek’s face does something complicated. “I’m leaving.”

But Stiles can’t lose this. He’ll do anything, say anything, to keep Derek from walking away from him right now, because this could be the last time that Derek walks away from him. “Doesn’t this mean anything to you?” He asks, because he’s laid everything he has out, and Derek’s walking away from it. He’s left himself raw and exposed and it’s not enough.

“I know it’s New Year’s Eve,” Derek says, “I know you’re lonely. But you can’t just show up here and expect that to make everything alright.”

But Stiles _does_ love him. And that should make everything alright. Because he couldn’t love Derek like this, before, he couldn’t be what Derek needed. But now he can be, and he wants to be. And that does matter.

“It doesn’t work this way,” Derek says, looking entirely defeated, and the crowd is counting down from ten now, and that means that Stiles has lost his chance.

“Then how does it work?” He demands.

“I don’t know, but not this way.”

“Well, how about this way,” He says, because he can be enough for Derek, and he can prove it. “I love that you drink disgusting black coffee anytime of the day or year. I love that you care so much about your dumb Camaro, just because it was your sister’s. I love that you get a crinkle between your eyebrows when you’re looking at me like I’m crazy. I love that after a day with you, I can still smell you on my clothes, and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s _not_ because I’m lonely, and it’s _not_ because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Derek’s looking at him like Stiles has never seen him look before—wary and confused and, yes, a little hopeful. “This is just like you,” he says, and he doesn’t sound so resigned anymore, “You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you.”

And maybe this isn’t what Stiles had hoped for. But it’s Derek, and Stiles knows Derek. Stiles _loves_ Derek.

“And I hate you,” Derek continues, as the crowd starts to sing Auld Lang Syne, “I really hate you.”

But Derek doesn’t hate him. Derek might even love him, and Stiles smiles for it.

And nods.

And kisses him, like he should have before: hard, and hot, and like he means it.

Because now he does.

But it’s him, so he can only let it be perfect for a minute before he pulls back, hands still in Derek’s hair, lips tingling, and says, “What does this song even mean? I’ve never known what this song meant.”

And Derek says, “Shut up, Stiles,” so fondly that Stiles can’t believe he ever missed that.

And Derek kisses him again.

…

_“The first time we met, we hated each other.”_

_“No, Stiles, you didn’t hate me. I hated you. The second time we met, you didn’t even remember me.”_

_“I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met, we became friends.”_

_“We were friends for a long time.”_

_“And then we weren’t.”_

_“And then we fell in love. Three months later we got married.”_

_“And it only took three months.”_

_“Twelve years and three months, Stiles.”_

_“We had this… we had a really wonderful wedding.”_

_“It really was a beautiful wedding.”_

_“It was great. We had this enormous coconut cake.”_

_“A huge coconut cake with the tiers… And there was this very rich chocolate sauce on the side.”_

_“Right, because as Derek knows, not everybody likes it on the cake, because it makes it very soggy.”_

_“Particularly the coconut soaks up a lot of that stuff, so you really… it’s important to keep it on the side.”_

_“Right.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *Credits Roll*
> 
> As always, comments and constructive criticism are always welcome! Thanks for reading.
> 
> ALSO after several frustrating hours... when I tried to copy/paste/edit this thing, all the formating got mad fucked up... I went through manually and tried to fix it all, but the spacing was all wonky and it also randomly deleted some words... so if something like that happens, it may not actually be me. It may be my dumb computer. But please let me know!
> 
> I have a humble [tumble](http://iddayidnight.tumblr.com/) now!


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